TOMMY—"About forty."
They thought more of the Legion of Honor in the time of the first Napoleon than they do now. The emperor one day met an old one-armed veteran.
"How did you lose your arm?" he asked.
"Sire, at Austerlitz."
"And were you not decorated?"
"No, sire."
"Then here is my own cross for you; I make you chevalier."
"Your Majesty names me chevalier because I have lost one arm. What would your Majesty have done had I lost both arms?"
"Oh, in that case I should have made you Officer of the Legion."