He began at the foundation, that is to say, with the church. The Concordat was concluded in 1802. In the same year was founded the order of the Legion of Honour, which satisfactorily answered its purpose as a mark of military distinction, but failed in what it was really intended to accomplish, the creation of an aristocracy. In 1804 the Empire was created. In 1807 the law of entail was reintroduced. In 1808 an entirely new aristocracy was created. All this, however, did not produce real similarity between France and the rest of Europe. There was little resemblance between Napoleon, the elected emperor, and the kings and emperors of the old dynasties; and Napoleon's aristocracy was an aristocracy without privileges, his church a church without endowments. But, although his various attempts at restoration resulted in the estrangement of many of the best elements in French society, it cannot be denied that they evidenced political sagacity in both internal and international questions. There was sound political economy in the idea of the Concordat. It had not as yet been possible to efface the species of disgrace which attached to the ownership of the confiscated property of the church and the nobles. Consequently it did not yet possess the same market value as other property. An inherited estate and an estate belonging to the nation yielding the same revenue did not find purchasers at the same price; the latter had to be sold for forty per cent. less. The state could only alter this condition of matters in one way, namely, by inducing the former possessors of what was now state property to make a distinct renunciation of their right to it. In most cases this could not be accomplished. As regarded church property, however, it was possible; for the church had a head, whose decisions were binding on all his subjects.