to have come into existence in 1159, when a Danish Crusader having slain an elephant single-handed with his sword, Canute VI. is said to have established this very noble Order in memory of that remarkable event. But this story is not admitted by the annalists of chivalry; they allow the Order to date only from 1478. St Andrew of Russia and the Black Eagle are very modern the former was established in 1698 by Peter the Great; and the latter in 1701, to commemorate the coronation of the first King of Prussia. St Stephen of Austria is still more recent; it was set up by Maria Theresa in 1764.

But though these eight majestuous Orders are alone included in the first class, there are, as was said just now, several other knighthoods whose antiquity is as great and whose merit is almost as real as theirs. Though we group them here with the great mass of Orders of every kind, some of them deserve a special mention. St Hubert of Bavaria, which dates from 1444; the extinct "Ordres du Roi," in France, St Michael, St Louis, and the St Esprit; the Danebrog of Denmark, with its legend of a flag which fell miraculously from heaven in 1219, in the middle of a fierce battle which it helped the Danes to win; the Spanish Order of Montesa and the Christ of Portugal, which two replaced the Temple when it was extinguished in the Peninsula in 1315; the White Eagle, established in 1325 in Poland, but now absorbed by Russia; our own Bath; -all these are examples of Orders of this class which possess or have possessed much dignity, and there are several others like them. And, subsidiarily, there are the purely military decorations, such as St George of Russia and our Victoria Cross, which have a merit and a value of a special kind, and must

not be confounded with the mass of ribbons which constitute the third category.

This one category includes, at the present moment, nearly 120 Orders. The number fluctuates; for, though it is increased almost every year by the creation of new institutions, it is diminished, from time to time, by the absorption of independent states, and by the consequent suppression of the Orders belonging to those states. These two conflicting causes make it somewhat difficult to ascertain the exact number of Orders in existence on any given day. The books which have been published on the subject (and there are a good many of them, copied from each other, in all the languages of Europe) are all far behind the times; the only list which can be admitted as probably correct is the one furnished by the 'Almanach de Gotha' for 1874; and even that one will doubtless become inexact before the year is out. It shows that on last New Year's Day 43 countries possessed Orders; of these countries 33 are in Europe, 4 in America (Brazil, Honduras, Venezuela, and Hawaii); 5 in Asia (Siam, Birmah, Persia, Cambodge, and China); and 1 in Africa (Tunis). These 43 countries dispose of 138 Orders, not including medals of any kind, or commemorative crosses. Furthermore, the states which have been recently suppressed (Naples, Hanover, Hesse, Mexico, Modena, Nassau, Parma, and Tuscany) possessed 23 others, all of which are at present in abeyance, and ought not to be worn by those who hold them. And it must be remembered that the 138 Orders now in force, represent very little more than half the total of all the Orders which have existed; for, without including any of the mythical or legendary brotherhoods, the special books present

catalogues which, though they vary somewhat between themselves, reach a general total of about 260 Orders, of which about 120 have become extinct. But, though these figures show the quantities in which Orders have disappeared, other figures indicate that they sprout up again even faster than they fade; for when we analyse the composition of the 138 existing Orders, we find that 86 of them have been created during the 19th century, that 23 were made in the 18th century, and that only 29 of them are anterior to the year 1700. Most of the old religious and strictly noble confraternities have vanished out of sight; but they have been replaced by modern institutions more in harmony with the spirit of the age. And when we look still closer into the subject, and examine the geographical distribution of all these Orders, we naturally find that, as the rush for them is everywhere the same, the development of their number has been everywhere alike, with one exception. That exception, strangely, is in France-in frivolous, vainglorious France the very place where we should least expect to find it. While sturdy cross-despising England owns 7 Orders, Sweden 6, Russia 8, Bavaria 13, Austria 9, Prussia 11, Spain 10, Portugal 7, Italy 5, Wurtemberg 4, and little Denmark 2, France, alone of the real nations, has but one. Proportionately to their population, their power, or their pride, all other European states have gone on multiplying their ribbons; France contents herself with the single cross of Hon

our.

And while most other countries have created special decorations for women (out of the 138 there are 13 for ladies only, and 4 others to which they are promiscuously admitted, making 17 in all, or twelve per cent of the entire number), France has declined to parti

rare

cipate in that pretty court and ballroom form of chivalry; and in the cases in which women have been considered worthy of it, they have been specially admitted into "the Legion," whose cross is at this moment worn by Rosa Bonheur the painter, and Soeur Rosalie the Nun.

The Hospitallers, the Garter, and the Legion of Honour represent the three aspects which Orders have successively assumed; they are typical of the religious, the aristocratic, and the democratic forms of chivalry; no examples better illustrate those essential stages of the development of decorations. We have now reached the last of them, and it is by far the most interesting of the three, for it leads us straight into the actual situation of the question. The Legion of Honour was the starting-point of popularised Orders, the original of knighthood for the masses; all other similar institutions are mere copies from it. And it is not for this reason only that it must be regarded as a model; it possesses another rare peculiarityit has retained its prestige. It has been squandered, it has been illbestowed, it has been cut into many shapes, to suit the political necessities of ever-changing Governments; and yet it has always held its ground as the foremost Order of the third category. This opinion may be denied by those indigenous enthusiasts who, in every country, proclaim that what their own land owns is superior to what any other land can offer; but its truth would become apparent if Europe could be polled upon the subject; for, just as the Athenians, when called upon to determine who were the two bravest men amongst them, voted, first, each one for himself, and then each one for Alcibiades-so each European, if he claimed the front rank for his own country's Order, would surely

give the second to the Legion of Honour. This instinctive preference is no consequence of antiquity, of historic glories, of national associations; the Legion has no such qualities; it is brought about by the universal consciousness that this Order has done thoroughly the work for which it was invented, and by the respect which we all involuntarily feel for duty well performed. Whether the duty be great or little does not affect the question. The fact that this particular duty is a very small one in no way diminishes the excellence of the means by which it is discharged. The object is to distribute honorific rewards to everybody who is supposed to merit them; and that, in its present extensive and elastic sense, is in no way more practically and satisfactorily attained than by the grant of the decoration of the Legion of Honour. In measuring a subject of such a nature, on which opinions are both relative and arbitrary, each of us unconsciously applies his own theories and his own prejudices. There is no common rule to guide us-no standard to invoke. The assertion that the whole principle of Orders is illogical and absurd in our actual state of civilisation, would be received by many people as an indisputable reality, by many more as an abominable injustice. Others, again, would say that truth lies half-way between these two extremes; that however much Orders may be in contradiction with certain of the principles and ideas which now guide our public life, they are in close accordance with others of these principles and ideas; that they correspond to one of the weak necessities of human nature; and especially, that, by habit and long usage, they have become a generally recognised and easy form of manifesting Governmental gratitude and national approbation. And if these

arguments possess as indisputably they do-a certain value in their home bearings, it will be recognised that they assume still greater force in their international applications. This consideration brings us back to the special element of the subject which we are pursuing here.

Nations, like individuals, receive services from strangers, and, more than individuals, consider themselves bound to recognise those services. But nations, as a consequence of their royalty, cannot pay such debts as private persons do; they cannot offer an embroidered purse (even with nothing in it) as a recompense to ambassadors; they cannot give a dozen pairs of gloves to an allied general who has aided them to win a battle; they cannot present a bouquet of blush roses to a foreign judge who has been sent over to help to negotiate an extradition treaty; they cannot offer a bag of bon-bons or a pair of braces to the equerry of a king who visits them. It is true that usage authorises them, in such cases, to employ a service of Dresden china, a vase of malachite, or a curtain of Gobelins tapestry; but as these things cost many thousand pounds, they are employed only on rare occasions. Another solution has

been invented, a cheap and satisfactory one, with which both giver and receiver are content, which is neither beneath the acceptance of a sovereign nor above the merits of the lowest citizen,-a solution which has the enormous merit of fully satisfying the recipient without any outlay for the donor. The gift thus employed is the only one of the kind which the world's ingenuity has thus far devised-the only one yet discovered which possesses the admirable quality of "costing little, but seeming very dear"-the only one which has found out the secret of amalgamating much vanity

with much dignity. A decoration unites all these rare characters; it alone, of all the gifts which women or men can make, combines these contradictory attributions. But it attains them usually by means of a great variety in its own composition, so as to fit itself to all the shades and shapes of possible necessities. It is mainly to acquire this variety of adaptability to all sorts of exigencies that so many Orders have been created, each of them representing one of the many shades of honour, each of them possessing a certain well-recognised degree of value, each of them (except the very highest) subdivided into farther ranks within itself. By this means every large State has now at its disposal, in one of the degrees of one of its several Orders, the means of satisfying, with critical precision, all the claims which are addressed to it, whatever be the hierarchical position of the claimant, whatever be the nature of the obligation towards him, whatever be the measure of courtesy intended to be shown to him. And yet, though some nations require to have nearly a dozen Orders at their disposal for the due discharge of this delicately graduated service, France contrives to reach the same result with the sole aid of the five classes of the Legion of Honour.

Everywhere throughout the Continent there is the same demand for decorations; and as vice and virtue have the reputation of existing in all countries in equal quantities, it may fairly be supposed that, proportionately to the population, the number of people who merit to be decorated is everywhere the same. But certain Governments are openhanded in the matter, while others are rather niggardly, so that the quantity of decorated citizens follows no universal rule. In France there are now about 52,000 men

who have the cross; in Italy about as many; in Spain the proportion must be larger still; while in each of the great German States it is somewhat less. Not counting war-medals, it may be guessed that in all Europe one man in every three hundred possesses a decoration, though this in no way means that the three-hundredth part of the male population has in any way deserved a national reward. The number of décorés who have rendered any appreciable service to their country, though increasing, is still very limited; the great mass of them get their cross, in every land, simply because they have spent twenty or thirty years in some inferior military or civil employment; because they are ancient captains or worn-out mayors, or long-persisting members of an agricultural committee, or senior beadles of a province, or white-haired clerks in an office under Government, or because they are friends of a prefect or a minister. The small minority of really meritorious knights is made up of soldiers who have won their cross in action, of leading civil servants, of energetic manufacturers who have extended trade, of engineers who have executed great public works, of chiefs in literature, art, and science, and of a few other truly useful citizens; the rest acquire a ribbon because they have grown rusty in fifteenth-rate State functions, and because it has become a habit to smooth over their discharge by making them chevaliers. This is how certain decorations have become discredited; they have not descended to their actual level because they have been democratised, because the simple soldier and the general-in-chief aspire after the same recompense, because equality in honour is an accepted principle of our century; such orders have sunk in value and opinion because they are bestowed without

any kind of reasonable ground or motive, and solely to content stupid vanities.

Each nation uses decorations in its own way. The Italian wears no sign upon his coat, but he takes the title of Commander or Chevalier, and if he holds the former of those two ranks, his wife becomes a countess (though he does not become a count). The Spaniard and the Frenchman put into their buttonhole a knot or a rosette according to their grade, but assume no sort of knightly designation. The Germans, when in plain clothes, some times show a ribbon; but that habit is, perhaps naturally, unfrequent amongst populations of whom so many live in uniform, and who, consequently, bear the cross itself, which civilians never do, except at parties or on ceremonious occasions. We in England have a fashion of our own of indicating the possessors of our Orders: we give "Sir" to our Grand Crosses and our Commanders, and, as in Italy, we include their wives in the effects of the decoration by bestowing on them the rank of "Lady;" furthermore, we append various capital letters to the name of every holder of a British Order. Every country has its own way of manifesting the ownership of these adornments; the manner varies, but the intent is everywhere identically the same.

All these details are, however, purely local. The international elements of the question do not come into view until we look at the uses of decorations outside the land to which they indigenously belong. These uses are very frequent. In France alone there are about 8000 natives who hold foreign crosses; while, on the other hand, the Legion of Honour is possessed by about 4000 strangers. France alone, consequently, offers about 12,000 ex

amples (giving and receiving both included) of the use of decorations as international expressions of compliment, of gratitude, or of flattery. It is computed that, including all the Orders, about 55,000 crosses, of all grades, are now bestowed outside their native soil. This figure is large enough to supply clear testimony of the tendency of Governments to employ this handy means of showing courtesy to strangers; and it is a new evidence of the marvellous development of contact and communication which has taken place of late years between the members of European States. Indeed this latter consideration assumes a character of political importance when we follow it up a little further, and ask ourselves how it has become possible that 55,000 people can have rendered services enough to Governments other than their own to have merited a recompense from those Governments. Of course we all well know that a large number of such decorations, including especially the higher ranks, are given as mere formalities of ceremonial to diplomatists and soldiers; but at least three-fourths of the entire number are simple crosses of Chevalier, which have been bestowed in recognition of some real or imaginary service. It is this latter category which is puzzling, and it would be both amusing and instructive to look through the list of motives for which all these distinctions have been conferred. Such a study would explain to us, with the most gratifying indiscretion, what are the particular services which are most freely offered to or accepted by Continental Governments, and would, in this way, afford a curious insight into a hitherto uninvestigated side of human nature. A well-made catalogue of these motives and these services would be a revelation, but in the actual condition of society there is