It was at this period that Napoleon founded a new nobility as a further means of rewarding those who had rendered brilliant services to France. This institution was designed, too, as a means of reconciling old and new France. It created the title of prince, duke, count, baron, and knight; and those receiving these titles were at the same time given domains in the conquered provinces, sufficient to permit them to establish themselves in good style. The drawing up of the rules which were to govern this new order occupied the gravest men of the country, Cambacérès, Saint-Martin, Hauterive, Portalis, Pasquier. Among other duties they had to prepare the armorial bearings. Napoleon refused to allow the crown to go on the new escutcheons. He wished no one but himself to have a right to use that symbol. A substitute was found in the panache, the number of plumes showing the rank. Napoleon used the new favors at his command freely, creating in all, after 1807, forty-eight thousand knights, one thousand and ninety barons, three hundred and eighty-eight counts, thirty-one dukes, and three princes. All members of the old nobility who were supporting his government were given titles, but not those which they formerly held. Naturally this often led to great dissatisfaction, the bearers of ancient names preferring a lower rank which had been their family’s for centuries to one higher, but unhallowed by time and tradition. Thus Madame de Montmorency rebelled obstinately against being made a countess,—she had been a baroness under the old _régime_,—and, as the Montmorencys claimed the honor of being called the first Christian barons, she felt justly that the old title was a far prouder one than any Napoleon could give her. But a countess she had to remain. In his efforts to win for himself the services of all those whom blood and fortune had made his natural supporters, the emperor tried again to reconcile Lucien. In November, 1807, Napoleon visited Italy, and at Mantua a secret interview took place between the brothers. Lucien, in his “Memoirs,” gives a dramatic description of the way in which Napoleon spread the kingdoms of half a world before him and offered him his choice.