umber and to the quality.

This new institution of knighthood produced a singular effect on my vain
and giddy, countrymen, who, for twelve years before, had scarcely seen a
star or a riband, except those of foreign Ambassadors, who were
frequently insulted when wearing them. It became now the fashion to be a
knight, and those who really were not so, put pinks, or rather blooms, or
flowers of a darker red, in their buttonholes, so as to resemble, and to
be taken at a distance for, the red ribands of the members of the Legion
of Honour.

A man of the name of Villeaume, an engraver by profession, took advantage
of this knightly fashion and mania, and sold for four louis d'or, not
only the stars, but pretended letters of knighthood, said to be procured
by his connection with persons of the household of the Emperor. In a
month's time, according to a register kept by him, he had made twelve
hundred and fifty knights. When his fraud was discovered, he was already
out of the way, safe with his money; and, notwithstanding the researches
of the police, has not since been taken.

A person calling himself Baron von Rinken, a subject and an agent of one
of the many Princes of Hohenlohe, according to his own assertion, arrived
here with real letters and patents of knighthood, which he offered for
sale for three hundred livres. The stars of this Order were as large as
the star of the grand officers of the Legion of Honour, and nearly
resembled it; but the ribands were of a different colour. He had already
disposed of a dozen of these stars, when he was taken up by the police
and shut up in the Temple, where he still remains. Four other agents of
inferior petty German Princes have also been arrested for offering the
Orders of their Sovereigns for sale.

A Captain Rouvais, who received six wounds in his campaign under Pichegru
in 1794, wore the star of the Legion of Honour without being nominated a
knight. He has been tried by a military commission, deprived of his
pension, and condemned to four years' imprisonment in irons. He proved
that he had presented fourteen petitions to Bonaparte for obtaining this
mark of distinction, but in vain; while hundreds of others, who had
hardly seen an enemy, or, at the most, made but one campaign, or been
once wounded, had succeeded in their demands. As soon as sentence had
been pronounced against him, he took a small pistol from his pocket, and
shot himself through the head, saying, "Som