half-infidel society, the First Consul was ready to undertake the
almost equally hazardous task of establishing an order of social
distinction, and that too in the very land where less than eight years
previously every title qualified its holder for the guillotine. For
his new experiment, the Legion of Honour, he could adduce only one
precedent in the acts of the last twelve years.


The whole tendency had been towards levelling all inequalities. In
1790 all titles of nobility were swept away; and though the Convention
decreed "arms of honour" to brave soldiers, yet its generosity to the
deserving proved to be less remarkable than its activity in
guillotining the unsuccessful. Bonaparte, however, adduced its custom
of granting occasional modest rewards as a precedent for his own
design, which was to be far more extended and ambitious.

In May, 1802, he proposed the formation of a Legion of Honour,
organized in fifteen cohorts, with grand officers, commanders,
officers, and legionaries. Its affairs were to be regulated by a
council presided over by Bonaparte himself. Each cohort received
"national domains" with 200,000 francs annual rental, and these funds
were disbursed to the members on a scale proportionate to their rank.
The men who had received "arms of honour" were, _ipso facto_ to be
legionaries; soldiers "who had rendered considerable services to the
State in the war of liberty," and civilians "who by their learning,
talents, and virtues contributed to establish or to defend the
principles of the Republic," might hope for the honour and reward now
held out. The idea of rewarding merit in a civilian, as well as among
the military caste which had hitherto almost entirely absorbed such
honours, was certainly enlightened; and the names of the famous