cking. The great trainer who displays them has omitted none of
the seductions which excite and stimulate an ordinary mind. He has
associated with the positive values of power and wealth every
value incident to imagination and opinion; hence his institution of
decorations and the Legion of Honor.[3343]

"They call it a toy,"[3344] said he, "but men are led by toys...
Frenchmen are not changed by ten years of revolution.... See how the
people prostrate themselves before foreign decorations: they have been
surprised by them and accordingly do not fail to wear them.... The
French cherish but one sentiment, honor: that sentiment, then, requires
nourishing--they must have honors."

A very few are satisfied with their own achievements; ordinary men
are not even content with the approbation they perceive in the eyes of
others: it is too intermittent, too reserved, too mute; they need fame
that is brilliant and noisy; they want to hear the constant hum of
admiration and respect whenever they appear or whenever their name is
mentioned. Even this does not suffice; they are unwilling that their
merit should rest in men's minds in the vague state of undefined
greatness, but that it should be publicly estimated, have its current
value, enjoy undisputed and measured rank on the scale above all other
lesser merits.--The new institution affords complete satisfaction to
all these exigencies of human and French nature. On the 14th of July,
1804,[3345] the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille, Napoleon
administers the oath to the legionaries and, after a solemn mass,
distributes the insignia under the dome of the Invalides in the presence
of the empress and the court; and again one month later, August
16, 1804, on the anniversary of the Emperor's birth, in the camp at
Boulogne, facing the ocean and in full view of the flotilla assembled to
conquer England, before one hundred thousand spectators and the entire
army, to the roll of eighteen hundred drums. No ceremony, probably, was
ever more exciting. The eminent surgeon, Larrey, then decorated, a man
of austere virtue, spoke of it with emotion to the end of his life and
never alluded that unique day but with a trembling voice. On that
day, nearly all the men of superior and tried merit and talent in
France[3346] are proclaimed, each with the title proportionate his
degree of eminence--chevaliers, officers, commanders, grand-officers,
and, later on, grand-eagles; each on the same plane