[2] The idea flashed to him in Venice, where he had seen the original manuscript of an Order of the Saint Esprit or Droit Desir founded in 1353 by Louis of Anjou, titular king of Jerusalem and Sicily and husband of Joanna, queen of Naples and countess of Provence, and placed under the protection of St. Nicholas of Bari, whose image was reproduced on the pendant of the collar.

Henry III realised that the Order of St. Michael had inflated and degraded during the civil wars, and therefore decided to place the new order of the Holy Spirit alongside it and to attribute them together; for this reason who was created knight of the Holy Spirit was called chevalier des ordres du roi.

[4][5] Its membership was initially restricted to a small number of powerful princes and nobles, but this increased dramatically due to the pressures of the Wars of Religion.

At the beginning of the reign of Henry III, the Order of Saint Michael had several hundred living members, ranging from kings to bourgeois.

The new order was dedicated to the Holy Spirit to commemorate the fact that Henry III was elected as King of Poland (1573) and inherited the throne of France (1574) on two Pentecosts.

Following the Bourbon Restoration, the order was officially revived and a number were awarded for the 1825 Coronation of Charles X, only to be abolished again by the Orleanist Louis-Philippe following the July Revolution in 1830.

[8] Due to the blue riband from which the Cross of the Holy Spirit was hung, the knights became known as Les Cordons Bleus.

Allegedly, the banquets after ceremonial occasions were so famous that the expression cordon bleu became synonymous with high quality haute cuisine and, over time, extended to refer to other distinctions of the highest class.

At the center of the cross, was set a white dove descending (i.e., with its wings and head pointing downward) surrounded by green flames.

[11][12] More generally, the cross was suspended from a large ribbon of color moirée blue sky, hence the nickname cordon bleu the knights wore.