Of the old nobility many had perished on the scaffold, or on the battle-fields, others had fled to foreign countries, and their castles and estates had been confiscated by the State. Under the comparatively mild rule of Napoleon a few members of the _ancienne noblesse_ ventured to return to France--indeed, several distinguished Royalists were specially invited to do so,--yet the court of the First Empire was composed, not of these, but for the most part of the soldiers, statesmen, and men of letters who had assisted to place him on the throne, and on whom he, in return, conferred titles as brilliant as any that had been formerly held under the old Bourbon kings. Marshal of France, prince, duke, marquis, count, baron, all flourished once again. Very new and very grand, but of origin most doubtful. Coats-of-arms were granted, and Louis David, Napoleon’s favourite artist, was called upon to design a new style of head-dress to denote the ranks which had, in former days, been indicated by various forms of coronets and helmets, as in British heraldry. The blazonry under the Empire, being military in its origin, was conceived in the true spirit of military uniformity, each grade being as distinctively marked as the colonel, officers, and rank and file would be in a regiment of infantry drawn up for a general inspection. The result of blending these three distinct systems--the old style, the Napoleonic, and that of the Restoration period--is somewhat confusing. A few families adhere to the old style, some to the Napoleonic, and the student of French heraldry must make himself acquainted with all. But reverting to the pre-Revolution period, it appears that about 1700, helmets, wreaths, and mantling began to go out of use on ex-libris, and were replaced by coronets, which at first indicated with some certainty the rank of the owner. But after a time individuals assumed coronets to which they were not entitled, whilst members of the lower ranks of nobility promoted themselves, without ceremony, to the higher grades; the baron became a marquis, and the count assumed the coronet of a duke. An ordinance of 1663, which forbade the usurpation of the insignia of nobility under the penalty of a fine of 1,500 livres, stopped these abuses for a time. But the law soon became a dead letter, and one might suppose, at the present time, that no such regulation had ever existed, so systematically was it evaded. As, however, in early unnamed ex-libris the coronets have a certain small value in assisting in their identification, a brief description of the distinctive features of the principal coronets may be useful to collectors. The royal crown of France was a circle, surrounded by eight _fleurs-de-lis_, of which only three and two halves are visible in engravings; these were surmounted by the arches of a diadem, on the summit of which was a double _fleur-de-lis_.