Décoration du Lys The Décoration du Lys was a medal created by the Bourbon Restoration . Background . From the end of 1813 , Napoleon ' s armies were fighting on their own soil , culminating in the Six Days Campaign . Napoleon ended his reign with a series of Pyrrhic victories which could not save the Empire , and he abdicated on 5 April 1814 . In a Paris occupied by the forces of the Coalition , the National Guard ensured public order by wearing a white cockade , abandoning the Revolutionary tricolour cockade , and it was on this corps that the returning Bourbons chose to found their power , rather than the Imperial armies and their officers , which they judged still to be too unreliable . Creation . King Louis XVIII arrived in Paris on 3 May with his brother Charles de Bourbon , Comte d ’ Artois , the future Charles X . It was then that little medals with the image of the new king and fleurs de lys , on white ribbons , began to circulate to reassure and appease the Paris population . One of the comte d ’ Artois ' s orders of the day , on 26 April 1814 , created the Décoration du Lys for the garde nationale of Paris as " a perpetual sign of the services it has rendered , whether in fighting for their homes and , charged alone on the night of 30 March with ensuring Paris ' s guard and safety , preserving the king ' s capital for the king and the goods , lives and honour of so many families , or - when occupying posts beside those of the troops of the line - it rendered them an example of devotion and sacrifice , or when - despite this painful service - it acted as the maison militaire du Roi and granted the royal family the satisfaction of , for their guard , not being surrounded by the French . " By an order of the day on 9 May 1814 , king Louis XVIII approved the creation of the Décoration du Lys , extending it to all the gardes nationales of France . It was awarded to the national guards after they took the following oath - " I swear fidelity to God , and to the King , forever " The granting of the Décoration du Lys induced the grant of an official patent . Assuring the loyalty of the social elite to the new monarchy thanks to this simple honour , the award of the Décoration du Lys would be extended again and again , quickly starting to be awarded in all France ' s regions then royal officials granted them successively to generals , ministers , prefects , and finally even mayors . It was banned during the Hundred Days , then reinstated on the Second Restoration , only to be suppressed once and for all by an ordinance of Louis Philippe on 10 February 1831 . Beneficiaries . Then it was awarded equally to officials of various administrations , to notables , to deputation members , to high - level and general officers , etc . Characteristics . Bars . As with the croix du Lys , some bore the inscription " Gage de la paix - Vive le Roi " . These bars were sometimes borne on the ribbon of the Légion d ’ honneur . Did an Ordre du Lys exist ? The Décoration du Lys was often called the Ordre du Lys . Even if from 1824 it was controlled by the grand chancellory of the Légion d ’ honneur , it never had a Grand Master or a chancellory of its own , and is never called an Order in the official documents . Décoration de la Fidélité . In 1816 the 600 National Guards serving in Paris in 1815 received the Décoration de la Fidélité , created by order of Louis XVIII on 5 February 1816 to replace the Décoration du Lys . Strictly speaking , it was not a new decoration but mainly a particular version of the Décoration du Lys , albeit one strictly reserved for thes 600 Guards . It was in gold , and not widely awarded . Again , official texts speak of a " decoration " rather than an " order " of fidelity .