I'm up to the part where Emperor Napoleon and Tsar Alexander make peace at Tilsit. With Alexander's permission, Napoleon gives one of the soldiers in the Russian regiment a Legion of Honour decoration. It is later remarked by another that this soldier would then be receiving a pension from the French government as a recipient of the Legion of Honour.
Was this relatively common in real life then? What would have happened to the pension when Russia and France went to war again in 1812?
Yes, the recipient of the Legion d'Honneur did get a pension - and it was transferred to his widow when he died. If the Award was awarded posthumously, the widow got the medal and the pension.
Legion d'Honneur widows were a powerful political force in the post-Napoleonic society, as it was hard to counter any protest they staged (to get their benefits etc) since their husbands had died for the nation and they had been awarded the highest honour France had at the time.