26. ‘On the Star of “The Legion of Honour” (From the French)’, 1815
NLS NG.1583.d.23
‘On the Star of “The Legion of Honour” (From the French)’, 1815, NLS NG.1583.d.23The inspiration for this poem may have been a cross of the Légion d’honneur sent to Byron from Paris by Lady Caroline Lamb in September 1815. Napoleon had instituted the order of the Légion d’honneur in 1802 as a decoration for exceptional civil or military conduct.
The poem was published six months after it was written, first anonymously in The Examiner and then by Murray in Byron’s Poems (1816). The publication of the poem on the eve of his self-imposed exile from Britain may be seen as a parting declaration of Byron’s continuing obsession with Napoleon and his rejection of the ruling Tory party and the society he felt had rejected him.
In this exhibition
- Acknowledgements & foreword
- Introduction
- Introduction
- 1. Manuscript of Byron’s ‘Detached Thoughts’, number 84
- 2. Manuscript copy of Byron’s ‘Detached Thoughts’, annotated by Sir Walter Scott, 1825
- 3. Letter from Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, 27 February 1808
- 4. Thomas Medwin's Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron
- 5. John Cam Hobhouse's Journey through Albania
- Britannia: Parliament, party & the Prince
- Introduction to: Britannia: Parliament, party & the Prince
- 6. Byron’s draft parliamentary speech on Roman Catholic emancipation, 1812
- 7. Letter of Lord Sligo to Byron, 20 February 1812
- 8. The Parliamentary Speeches of Lord Byron
- 9. Byron’s manuscript of ‘Note to the annexed stanzas on Brougham’, 7 December 1818
- 10. Letter from Byron to Lady Melbourne, 21 September 1813
- 11. Byron’s ‘Ode to the Framers of the Frame Bill,’ Morning Chronicle, 2 March 1812
- 12. Manuscript of Byron’s ‘Lines to a Lady Weeping,’ 1812
- 13. Letter from Byron to John Murray II, 22 January 1814
- 14. ‘Song for the Luddites’
- 15. King’s Colledge [sic] to wit: a practical essay
- Napoleon: Emperor, expectation & exile
- Introduction to: Napoleon: Emperor, expectation & exile
- 16. & 17. Byron’s collection of Waterloo spoils (objects and livret)
- 18. Manuscript of Byron’s additional stanzas to ‘Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte,’ 1814
- 19. Letter from Byron to John Murray II, 10 April 1814
- 20. Don Juan, Canto IX, stanza 4
- 21. Byron’s ‘Ode to Napoleon’ in The Examiner
- 22. Bill for a Napoleonic snuff box, 7 November 1818
- 23. Letter from Byron to John Murray II, 4 December 1821
- 24. Manuscript of Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto III, stanzas 19-21
- 25. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Canto the third. London: John Murray, 1816
- 26. ‘On the Star of “The Legion of Honour” (From the French)’, 1815
- 27. Poems on Napoleon
- 28. Letter from Byron to John Murray II, 22 January 1814
- 29. Manuscript of Byron’s ‘From the French,’ stanzas 3-5, in the hand of Augusta Leigh with annotations by Byron, 1815
- Italy: politics, patriotism & plays
- Introduction to: Italy: politics, patriotism & plays
- 30. Marino Faliero, fragmentary proof for the first edition, 1820, corrected by Byron
- 31. & 32. Playbill for a performance of Marino Faliero, 1821, with accompanying letter defending the performance
- 33. Public notice about a performance of Byron’s Doge of Venice, 1821
- 34. Letter from Byron to John Murray II, 28-9 September 1820
- 35. & 36. Letters from Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, 26 April and 12 October 1821
- 37. The Two Foscari. An historical tragedy
- 38. Notes in Italian, in an unknown hand, used by Byron for Marino Faliero
- 39. ‘Foscari’ by John Rogers Herbert
- 40. Pencil and watercolour sketch of Byron at Genoa, attributed to Count Alfred D’Orsay, April or May 1823
- 41. Byron’s swordstick
- Greece: Hellenism & heroism
- Introduction to: Greece: Hellenism & heroism
- 42. Sculpted portrait bust medallion of Byron in Albanian dress by Nikolaos Kotziamanis, 1992, after Thomas Phillips’ portrait, 1813
- 43. Letter to Byron from the London Greek Committee, 8 March 1823
- 44. Letter of Metropolitan Ignatios to Mavrokordatos, in Greek, introducing Lord Byron, 1823
- 45. Manuscript of ‘On This Day I Complete My Thirty- Sixth Year’, in Byron’s Cephalonia Journal, 1824
- 46. Commission giving Lord Byron charge of a group of artillery signed by Alexandros Mavrokordatos
- 47. 'View of Albanian palikars in pursuit of an enemy'
- 48. Part of a letter or memorandum from Mavrokordatos to Byron, in French, 21 or 22 March 1824
- 49. William Parry's The Last Days of Lord Byron
- 50. Leicester Stanhope's Greece, in 1823 and 1824
- 51. Divers sièges de Missolonghi
- 52. Translation of the funeral oration delivered in Greek by M Spiridon Tricoupi ... in honour of the late Lord Byron
- 53. Byron’s War: Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution by Roderick Beaton
- Editions used as sources