or 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
_savants_ Laplace, Monge, Berthollet, Lagrange, Chaptal, and of
jurists such as Treilhard and Tronchet, imparted lustre to what would
otherwise have been a very commonplace institution. Bonaparte desired
to call out all the faculties of the nation; and when Dumas proposed
that the order should be limited to soldiers, the First Consul
replied in a brilliant and convincing harangue:

"To do great things nowadays it is not enough to be a man of five
feet ten inches. If strength and bravery made the general, every
soldier might claim the command. The general who does great things
is he who also possesses civil qualities. The soldier knows no law
but force, sees nothing but it, and measures everything by it. The
civilian, on the other hand, only looks to the general welfare. The
characteristic of the soldier is to wish to do everything
despotically: that of the civilian is to submit everything to
discussion, truth, and reason. The superiority thus unquestionably
belongs to the civilian."

In these noble words we can discern the secret of Bonaparte's
supremacy both in politics and in warfare. Uniting in his own person
the ablest qualities of the statesman and the warrior, he naturally
desired that his new order of merit should quicken the vitality of
France in every direction, knowing full well that the results would
speedily be felt in the army itself. When admitted to its ranks, the
new