The Revolution having levelled all ranks, there were no visible marks of distinction between man and man. Napoleon was too astute a politician not to pander to mankind’s innate craving for outward tokens of superiority. The Legion of Honor was created against stubborn opposition, to reward with ribbons, buttons, and pensions those who had distinguished themselves by their own efforts in any walk of life. It embraced merit of every kind,--civil, military, scientific, literary, artistic. Men of all creeds, of every rank, every calling, were eligible. The test of fitness for membership was meritorious service to the State. Such at least was Napoleon’s theory: whether he or any one else ever strictly hewed to so rigid a line may be doubted. His order of nobility had this merit: it was not hereditary, it carried no special privileges, it could not build up a caste, it kept alive the idea that success must be founded upon worth, not birth. In theory such an order of nobility was democratic to the core. Lafayette, whom Napoleon had freed from captivity, recalled to France, and reinstated in his ancestral domain, scornfully declined to enter this new order of nobility. So did many others--some because they were royalists, some because they were republicans. In a few years the institution had become so much a part of national life that the restored Bourbons dared not abolish it. * * * * * “I will go down to posterity with the Code in my hand,” said Napoleon with just pride, for time has proven that as a lawgiver, a modern Justinian, his work has endured. Early in his consulate he began the great labor of codifying the laws of France,--a work which had often been suggested, and which the Convention had partially finished, but which had never been completed. To realize the magnitude of the undertaking, we must bear in mind that, under the Old Order, there were all sorts of law and all kinds of courts. What was right in one province was wrong in another. A citizen who was familiar with the system in Languedoc would have found himself grossly ignorant in Brittany. Roman law, feudal law, royal edicts, local customs, seigniorial mandates, municipal practices, varied and clashed throughout the realm. The Revolution had prostrated the old system and had proposed to establish one uniform, modern, and equitable code of law for the whole country; but the actual carrying out of the plan was left to Napoleon. Calling to his aid the best legal talent of the land, the First Consul set to work. Under his supervision the huge task was completed, after the steady labor of several years. The Civil Code and the Code of Civil Procedure, the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure, were the four parts of the completed system, which, adopted in France, followed the advance of the Empire and still constitutes the law of a large portion of the civilized world.