It was then urged by some, that the Legion of Honor should be confined entirely to military merit. "By no means," said Napoleon, "Rewards are not to be conferred upon soldiers alone. All sorts of merit are brothers. The courage of the President of the Convention, resisting the populace, should be compared with the courage of Kleber, mounting to the assault of Acre. It is right that civil virtues should have their reward, as well as military virtues. Those who oppose this course, reason like barbarians. It is the religion of brute force they commend to us. Intelligence has its rights before those of force. Force, without intelligence, is nothing. In barbarous ages, the man of stoutest sinews was the chieftain. Now the general is the most intelligent of the brave. At Cairo, the Egyptians could not comprehend how it was that Kleber, with his majestic form, was not commander-in-chief. When Mourad Bey had carefully observed our tactics, he could comprehend how it was that I, and no other, ought to be the general of an army so conducted. You reason like the Egyptians, when you attempt to confine rewards to military valor. The soldiers reason better than you. Go to their bivouacs; listen to them. Do you imagine that it is the tallest of their officers, and the most imposing by his stature, for whom they feel the highest regard? Do you imagine even that the bravest stands first in their esteem? No doubt they would despise the man whose courage they suspected; but they rank above the merely brave man him whom they consider the most intelligent. As for myself, do you suppose that it is solely because I am reputed a great general that I rule France? No! It is because the qualities of a statesman and a magistrate are attributed to me. France will never tolerate the government of the sword. Those who think so are strangely mistaken. It would require an abject servitude of fifty years before that could be the case. France is too noble, too intelligent a country to submit to material power. Let us honor intelligence, virtue, the civil qualities; in short, let us bestow upon them, in all professions, the like reward."