While the Order of the Legion of Honor was instituted in 1802 under Bonaparte, First Consul, the first decorations were held in 1804 with the advent of the First Empire. A work often unknown to the general public retraces the history and career of these early legionaries : The Fasts of the Legion of Honor.

Originally published in five volumes in 1841, it has now become an indispensable source for identifying not only who were the first legionnaires of the Order and their feats of arms, but also their career progression until the 1840s. Indeed, many files of Legionnaires were destroyed during the Restoration and during the fires of the Commune of 1871.

Without this investigative work conducted by several scholars in the mid-nineteenth century who did not hesitate to question the families or legionaries themselves, many of these 4000 legionaries and their careers would therefore be unknown to us.

• Feats of the Legion of Honor : Biography of all decorated with the Legislative and Regulatory History of the Order.

Digitized list of members of the first promotions of the Legion of Honor during the First Empire