Napoleon'S Bees

Napoleon I., wishing to have some regal emblem more ancient than the fleur-de-lis, is said to have adopted the bee under the following circumstances:--

When the tomb of Childeric (the father of Clovis) was opened in 1653, there were found (besides the skeletons of his horse and his page, his arms, etc.) more than three hundred of what the French heralds mistook for bees, "of the purest gold, their wings being inlaid with a red stone like cornelian."

These small ornaments resembling bees were only what, in French, are called fleurons, supposed to have been attached to the harness of the war-horse.

The "bees" were sent to Louis XIV., but it was Napoleon who had them sprinkled over the imperial robes as emblematic of the enterprise and activity of the Napoleonic dynasty. The modern opinion is, that the French fleur-de-lis is really a bee with its wings outstretched, which would make the royal and the imperial emblems identical, but differently interpreted.