In France, the point of departure after the revolution in 1789 was that all differences based on estate or class should be abolished and that egalité ought to be the lodestar also guiding labour relations.The new regime presupposed formal equality between citizens as well as the individual having the right to choose and take the consequences of different alternatives offered on a free market. Freedom of contract and freedom of trade became the new articles of faith. This outlook reappeared in the great private law codifications of the 19th century.The French Code Civil of 1804 used three main types of locatio operae.The first one concerned servants who committed themselves to open-ended services of someone else (locatio gens de travail), the second carriers, who were involved in transports (voitures) and the third entrepreneurs, who had to carry out a definite task (entrepreneurs par suit de devis on marches).The code emphasised only one important distinction between locatio conductio operum and locatio conductio operis, namely which party was to have the liability for failure to fulfil obligations and the imputation of risks.A similar view was found in other countries’ civil codes such as the Netherlands (1838), Italy (1865) and even the GermanBürgerliches Gesetzbuch (1900). In this sense there was a parallel to common law’s distinction between“servants” (contract of service) and“independent contractors” (contract for service).126 Altogether, however, the civil codes gave little attention to the type of services rendered by a worker.Although some efforts were made to derive the duties of obedience, loyalty and care from the Roman law maxim that each contract should be executed in accordance withbona fides,127 it was not until the decades around 1900 that a general theory of the contract of employment was articulated. Instead, the regulations about the hiring of domestic c o n t i n u i t y a n d c o n t r ac t 69 126 Art. 1779 of the French Civil Code; Art. 1627 of the Italian Civil Code of 1865; Art. 1779 of the Belgian and Luxembourg Civil Codes, which remained in force after the countries’ loosening from France.Veneziani 1986, pp. 57-58. 127 Coing 1985, pp. 403-410; Klatt 1990, p. 349.
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