natural father is not a stranger, but the child's own maternal
grandfather, or, supposing the father to have been emancipated,
its paternal grandfather, or its great-grandfather paternal or
maternal, in this case, because the rights given by nature and
those given by adoption are vested in one and the same
person, the old power of the adoptive father is left unimpaired,
the strength of the natural bond of blood being augmented by
the civil one of adoption, so that the child is in the family and
power of an adoptive father, between whom and himself there
existed antecedently the relationship described. 3 When a child
under the age of puberty is adopted by rescript of the Emperor,
the adrogation is only permitted after cause shown, the goodness
of the motive and the expediency of the step for the pupil being
inquired into. The adrogation is also made under certain con-
ditions; that is to say, the adrogator has to give security to a
public agent or attorney of the people, that if the pupil should
die within the age of puberty, he will return his property to
the persons who would have succeeded him had no adoption
taken place. The adoptive father again may not emancipate
them unless upon inquiry they are found deserving of emanci-
pation, or without restoring them their property. Finally, if he
disinherits him at death, or emancipates him in his lifetime
without just cause, he is obliged to leave him a fourth of his own
property, besides that which he brought him when adopted, or
by subsequent acquisition. 4 It is settled that a man cannot
adopt another person older than himself, for adoption imitates
nature, and it would be unnatural for a son to be older than his
father. Consequently a man who desires either to adopt or to
adrogate a son ought to be older than the latter by the full term
of puberty, or eighteen years. 5 A man may adopt a person