Médaille France Bronze Napoléon Ier, Empereur de France, Roi d'Italie 1804

This medal commemorates one of the most significant events of the late Consulate, namely the distribution of the Legion of Honour carried out by Napoleon Bonaparte at Boulogne-sur-Mer on 16 August 1804, accompanied by the solemn oath taken by the Army of England. This event constitutes the first mass award of the Legion of Honour decoration, established only two years earlier in 1802, and holds a capital importance in French military and political history.

The ceremony at Boulogne brought together several tens of thousands of soldiers from the Camp de Boulogne, formed as part of the preparations for a possible landing in England. Napoleon, then First Consul on the verge of becoming Emperor of the French, personally presided over this distribution from a throne set up on the heights overlooking the sea, seated on what was described as the Chair of Dagobert, an ancient Merovingian relic.

The medal depicts on its obverse the profile or figure of Napoleon Bonaparte, accompanied by legends relating to his title and the commemorated event. The reverse illustrates the scene of the distribution or bears an inscription referring to the oath of the Army of England and the date of the ceremony, thus recalling the precise historical context of this founding act.