Thus, cities of the first order, such as Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bordeaux, Brussels, Ghent, Geneva, Hamburg, Lyons, Lille, Liège, Montauban, and Paris, bore three golden bees (the Napoleonic badge) on a chief gules, in addition to the arms of the cities here cited, whose names recall the extent of territory over which at one time Napoleon held sway. Second class towns bore a golden N on a dexter canton azure; and third class towns had a sinister canton gules, on which was a silver N. Quite recently the French Government conferred the Cross of the Legion of Honour on the town of Belfort, and on Rambervillers, a small place in the Vosges Mountains, as a recognition of the gallant resistance they offered to the Germans in 1870 and 1871. Belfort surrendered only under orders from the French Government, the peace armistice having been concluded. Its garrison left with the honours of war, and, although part of Alsace, it was left to France on account of the indomitable courage of Colonel Denfert-Rochereau (a Protestant of Rochelle), of the garrison, and also of the townspeople, who allowed their houses to be battered to pieces without once speaking of capitulation. The town of Châteaudun was “decorated” with the Legion of Honour by Gambetta, having signalized itself by its resistance to the invader, followed by reprisals. Two or three other towns were decorated with the National Order of Knighthood by Napoleon I. in 1815 for heroic resistance to the Allies in 1814. Altogether nine towns in France have the Cross of the Legion of Honour on their coats-of-arms. Another feature in Napoleonic heraldry was the revival of an ancient ordinary, entitled _champagne_, occupying a third of the shield in base; it frequently occurs in arms granted under the Empire, but is now obsolete. In fact, on the restoration of Louis XVIII., an ordinance was issued abolishing all the innovations introduced by Napoleon, some of which deserved a better fate. One of the most delightful _traits_ in the character of the French people is their readiness to laugh at their own little national failings, their vanity, their volatility, and their political instability. This power to see and appreciate the humorous side of events was never better shown than in a work entitled “_Dictionnaire des Girouettes_ ou nos contemporains peints d’après eux-mêmes,” published in Paris, anonymously, but ascribed to the Comte de Proisy d’Eppe.