At the same time that he constructed monuments and reorganized the public administration, Napoleon desired to found new social conditions. He had created kings and princes; he had raised around him his family and the companions of his glory, to unheard-of fortune; he wished to consolidate this aristocracy, which owed all its splendor to him, by extending it. He had magnificently endowed the great functionaries of the Empire; he wished to re-establish below and around them a hierarchy of subalterns, honored by public offices and henceforth, for this reason, to have themselves and families distinguished by hereditary titles. In the speech from the throne, by which he opened the session of the legislative body in 1807, Napoleon showed his intentions on this subject. "The nation," said he, "has experienced the most happy results from the establishment of the Legion of Honor. I have created several imperial titles, to give new splendor to my principal subjects, to honor striking services by striking recompenses, and also to prevent the return of any feudal titles incompatible with our Constitution." Thus it was that, by a child of the Revolution, still possessed by most of its doctrines, a nobility was to be created in France. The country was not deceived. The emperor could make dukes, marquises, counts, barons; he could not constitute an aristocracy, that slow product of ages in the history of nations. The new nobles remained functionaries when they were not soldiers, illustrious by themselves as well as by the incomparable lustre of the glory of their chief. The emperor gained battles, concluded treaties, raised or overthrew thrones; he founded a new nobility, and decreed the erection of magnificent monuments by the simple effort of his all-powerful will; he imagined that his imperial action had no limit, and thought himself able to command the master-pieces of genius as well as the movements of his armies. He was not, and had never been, indifferent to the great beauties of intellect, and his taste was shocked when he was extolled at the opera in bad verses.