_Legion d'honneur_, to be composed of a grand
administrative council and of fifteen cohorts, each consisting of seven
great officers, twenty commandants, thirty officers, and three hundred
and fifty legionaries. By the eighth article of this law, every
individual admitted into this Legion was to swear on his honor to devote
himself to the service of the Republic, to the preservation of its
territory in all its integrity, to the defence of its government, of its
laws, of all property which it had bestowed, to combat, with the aid of
all the means which justice, reason, and the laws authorized, every
enterprise tending to re-establish the feudal regime, to revive the
titles and qualities which had been its attributes,--in short, to aid
with all his power in the maintenance of liberty and equality. By the
denial of any hereditary privileges it was thought thus to create an
order which would not offend the new spirit of equality while offering
a suitable reward to the soldier, the diplomat, the scientist, the
professional or the commercial man who had rendered notable service to
his country.

"The Empire succeeding the Republic," says M. Steenackers in his
_Histoire des ordres de chevalerie_, "brought about certain changes in
the Legion of Honor. In the first place, the form of the oath had to be
modified, and was refused by certain men, such as the admiral Truguet
and the poet Lemercier. The first distribution made by the Emperor, on
the 14th of July, 1804, in the church of the Invalides, to the principal
personages of the Empire, was again made the occasion of a manifestation
of opposition by Augereau, although a grand officer of the order, and of
about sixty military officers who remained in the court, not wishing to
enter the chapel. In this distribution, the old invalided soldiers came
first, then the members of the Institute, and finally the military
legionaries. The youth of Paris also made its small protestation, some
days after this distribution. It was the season for carnations,--the
young men put these flowers in their buttonholes and thus were enabled
to receive, at a distance, military honors from functionaries a trifle
near-sighted. Napoleon, informed of the jests which ensued, and of the
discontent of the soldiers, ordered the minister of the police to take
the most severe measures with regard to these insolents. Fouche replied:
'Certainly these young people deserve to be chastised, but I will wait
for the au