this plan
they resorted. Under Napoleon the Cross was never granted until it had
been long and truly deserved: now it became the prey of meanness. The
order was prostituted and cast to favourite underlings and intriguers,
to whom it was distributed by caprice or bribery.

Our soldiers, who had purchased this distinction with their
blood,--the magistrates, the functionaries, the learned, the
manufacturers, who had received it as the reward of the services which
they had rendered to the state, to the arts, to useful industry,--all
were filled with consternation when they found themselves elbowed by a
mean and worthless mob. Yielding to their honest pride, the greater
part of our old legionaries refused to wear the insignia, which,
instead of conferring distinction, could only confound them with men
whom public opinion had branded and proscribed.

Success encouraged the government, and they did not stop. Richly
endowed asylums for the daughters of the deceased members of the
legion had been founded by the Emperor. Under the pretext of economy,
of saving the annual sum of forty thousand francs, the ministers took
the King by surprise, and hurried the Sovereign into the signature of
an order for turning the orphans out of doors. Marshal Macdonald
declared in vain that the old leaders of the army would never abandon
the children of their companions, and that they were ready to defray
the expense which was falsely assigned as the motive of the expulsion
of the girls. Equally fruitless was the generosity of Madame Delchan,
the matron of the establishment of Paris, who offered to continue its
management without any assistance from the government, and to expend
her entire fortune in the support of her pupils. Nor did the ministers
pay the least attention to those who stated that the greater part of
the children had neither friends nor relations, and that if they were
thrown destitute upon the world, they would be inevitably consigned to
misery or vice. No consideration could move the pity of the ministry.

But at length the indignation of the public found a voice in the Lower
House, and the representatives of the people were about to remonstrate
with the Sovereign. Ministers were disconcerted and abashed, and they
abandoned their profligate enterprise.

This check, however, did not amend them. A few days afterwards they
dissolved the military academies of St. Cyr and St. Germain, alleging
that they were superfluous; and at t