Legion of Honor

History

Roman by her name (inspired by the Legio honoratorum conscripta of the Antiquity), by her symbolism (the eagles) and her organization (sixteen troops for the France), the Legion of honor breaks with the tradition of the orders of Ancien Mode while being opened with all, and not only with noble, officers, rich person and powerful.

As some saw there an attack with the principle of the civic equality, Bonaparte, in Council of State justifies this institution: “I defy you to show me a République, old or modern, which could be done without distinctions. You call them the rattles, but it is with rattles that one carries out the men. ”

The French revolution had indeed abolished all decorations of the Ancien Mode and, under the Convention, the generals had taken for practice to allot weapons of honor (rifle of honor, sabers honor, or drum of honor) to reward the acts for bravery.

The July 14th 1804 took place in the vault of the Invalides the very first handing-over of Legion of honor by Napoleon Bonaparte with the officers deserving during a sumptuous official ceremony.

The association of the military and civil merits (the current distribution is approximately 2/3 1/3), makes it possible the order to survive all the modes until today, where one counts more 110 000 legionaries.

The legionaries are distinguished according to three ranks (90% are men) :

Knight (100 000)
Officer (10 000)
Commander (1 250)

And three dignities:

Large officer (250)
Grand' cross (75)
Large Master (1)

The cross was also given to cities (Luxembourg, Liege, Belgrade, Stalingrad, Verdun, Rouen and lately, Algiers in 2004), regiments, educational establishments (of the superior like the Central École Paris, the Polytechnic school, the National schools of Arts and Trades (today ENSAM then Arts and ParisTech Trades (decreed by president Lebrun in 1927) or the École of the charters or the secondary like the Lycée Lalande of Borough-in-Bresse), of the communities, the companies (of which the SNCF) and an association (the the French Red Cross).

The Legion of honor is not reserved to the French: it is also allotted on a purely protocolar basis with the Heads of State, Prime Ministers, members of Gouvernement and Ambassadeur S foreigners at the time of their arrival in France, and for whoever was used the interests of the France. For example, the February 19th 1999, the President of the Republic Jacques Chirac gave the badge to American war veterans of the First World War.

The admission and advance in the order are pronounced within the limit of quotas fixed by decree of the President of the Republic for one three years period. These quotas are distributed between the president and the various ministers who address their proposals to the Large chancellor. The access to the order cannot be done in a rank higher than that of knight, except when it is a question of honouring a foreign personality: it is then according to the protocolar row of the member elects (thus the prince Albert of Monaco was directly high with the dignity of large officer of the order in 1984). The admission in the order (knight) comprised with its creation, an imperceptible annual rent of two hundred and fifty frank gold. In 2004, this annual rent (knight) is of 6,10 €.

Attribution is almost automatic for old the Ministre S, the Préfet S fees, old the appointed S or senator S (the ministers and members of Parliament in activity are excluded from the safe field for acts of war), the tops Magistrat S and the members of the diplomatic corps. Obtaining a gold medal to the Olympic Games is a special promotion. The army obtains fifty percent of the places and the other professions represented well are the Policier S, the Pompier S, the elected officials, the senior officials and the representatives of the Culte S.

Moreover, in the beginning, the descendants of three successive generations of decorated with the Legion of honor obtained the aforementioned decoration by heredity. This provision, fallen in disuse, however was since never abolished.

Description

The badge is a star with five enamelled double rays of white, the ten buttoned points. The star and the buttons are out of money for the knights, in vermeil for the officers. The rays are connected by a crown, of money or vermeil following the rank, enamelled Vert and composed of sheets of Chêne (on the right) and of bay-tree (on the left) and whose lower ends, intersected, are attached by a node. The center of star presents a gold medallion with the effigy of the Republic, surrounded by a circle Bleu, carrying the words: FRENCH REPUBLIC . The star is suspended with a crown, of money or vermeil following the rank, is enamelled of green and composed of sheets of oak (this time on the left) and of bay-tree (this time on the right). To the reverse, the gold medallion carries two Tricolours with the inscription Honneur and Patrie forward as well as the creation date of the order: 29 floréal An X .

The badge is suspended with a red ribbon perhaps inherited the military Ordre of Saint-Louis. It comprises a rivet washer for the officers. The dimension of the badge in vermeil of the commanders, suspended with a tie, is of half larger than that of the first two ranks. The large officers carry the cross of officer but also a plate (vulgarly called “spittle”) on the right-sided of the chest. Large' the crosses carry the same plate, but in vermeil, on the left side of the chest. Their cross of vermeil, almost of the double of that of the first two ranks, goes in scarf, suspended with a broad red ribbon which passes on the right shoulder.

In civil behavior, the knights carry to the buttonhole a red ribbon, the officers a red rivet washer, the commanders a red rivet washer on silver overhand knot, the large officers a red rivet washer overhand knot half money half but, and large' the crosses a red rivet washer on gold overhand knot. The overhand knot is vulgarly called “settee”.

Order

The currency of the order is Honneur and Patrie .

The President of the Republic is the large Master of the Order. The large collar (compound of 16 rings in solid gold) is given to the president by the large chancellor, the day of his nomination. One sees it on the official photographs then it is deposited with the museum of the Legion of honor.

The large chancellor of the Legion of honor is selected among large' the crosses by the president of the Republic. Since 1969, it is named for six years. Since the first chancellor, Lacépède, only of the soldiers was named. The responsibilities for the large chancellor are rather wide: it with the load of all the problems involved in decorations in France. It is in particular the large chancellor who grants the authorizations of port of foreign decorations. He is also large chancellor of the National order of the Merit.

The large chancellor is assisted of a council joining together of the various members of the Legion, civilians and soldiers, starting from the rank of commander.

The large chancellery is located at Paris in the {{VIIe}} district in the hotel of Salm called today Palais of the Legion of honor. This palate shelters also the museum of the Legion of honor.

Member elects of the Legion of honor

Categories:

:Category: Chevalier of the Legion of Honor
: Category: Officer of the Legion of Honor
: Category: Commander of the Legion of honor
: Category: Large Officer of the Legion of Honor
: Category: Grand Cross of the Legion of honor

Lists:

List of the large chancellors of the Legion of honor
List of the large Masters of the legion of honor

Houses of education of the Legion of honor

Principal other French decorations

In the respect of the protocolar order of port of principal French decorations:

Refusal of decoration

the Cleaned of Ars , holy Jean-Marie Vianney, accepted the cross of chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1855, without its knowledge: the request had been made by it by the sub-prefect of Trévoux and the prefect of Ain. He refused it with the reason which the cross would not report of money for the poor. In spite of this refusal, the chancellery of the legion of honor sent the cross without requiring to him the money. Ultimately, it never carried it but was posed on its coffin.
“Jean Victor Marie Moreau made fun of the institution of the Legion of honor. Somebody said to him that one had intention giving the cross, non-seulement with those which would have been characterized by glory from the weapons, still with those which would have been pointed out by their merit and their knowledge. He exclaimed: “Eh well! I will ask for the cross of commander of the Order for my cook, because he has a higher merit in the art of the kitchen. ” (O' Meara.)
the collaborators of the '' Canard connected '' refuse since always decorations, the first of which the Legion of honor (Pierre Scize, journalist, will be returned newspaper in 1933 to have accepted it).
They refused decoration: the playwright Népomucène Lemercier refusing to lend oath to the Emperor and his dynasty, Fayette and the poet Jean-François Ducis, Gerard de Nerval, George Sand (which wrote to the minister who proposed the cross to him: “Made not that dear friend, I do not want to have the air of an old cantinière! ”), Honore Daumier (which declared: “I request the government to leave myself quiet! ”), Littré, Gustave Courbet, Guy of Maupassant, Maurice Ravel (which refuse this distinction immediately, without giving justification), Pierre and Marie Curie (Pierre, with which one proposed the cross, rétorqua simply: “I do not see of it the need”), Eugene Roy, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Antoine Pinay, Brigitte Bardot (which is decorated in 1985 but refuses to go to seek it), Catherine Deneuve.
Hector Berlioz, to which the desilvered State wanted to pay a mass of Requiem with the red ribbon, exclaimed: “I insane of your cross. Give me my money! ”.
Of the anarchistic poets like Jacques Prévert, Georges Brassens which made of it a song or Léo Ferré, which brocardé “this unhappy and red ribbon like shame”.
Geneviève de Fontenay, the president of the Committee Miss France that a senator of Savoy wanted to propose, also refused it for reciprocal ratios: “It is really désacraliser the ribbon which to distribute it to no matter whom… like chocolate medals. ”.
Distinguished fine December 1997, the writer Bernard Clavel stated that he refused to receive the Legion of honor, preferring to remain “in the clan of those which refused it”. He added that his/her uncle Charles Clavel had received it because he had abundantly poured his blood for his country in a terrible war: “I think that it would be turned over in its tomb by seeing me carrying the same ribbon as him. ”. It is also the case of Philippe Séguin, whose father was not decorated with the Legion of honor on a purely posthumous basis at the time of the Second world war.
At the time of a meeting, the president of the Republic Vincent Auriol proposes the Legion of honor to Marcel Aymé. In return, the writer indicates to him without care all the contempt that its interlocutor inspires to him. Then it finishes by these words, remained famous: “As for your Legion of honor, Mr. President, except your respect, you can square it to you in the train…”
the resistant sculptor Rene Iché, decorated like knight for 1914-1918, refused the promotion of officer in 1947 estimating that this decoration lost any direction if it received it as an artist or as a resistant pioneer of 1940.
Certaines people chooses to accept decoration but refuses to carry it, for example Jean d' Ormesson, of the French Academy.
Érik Satie affirms: “Is not only to refuse the Legion of honor. Still should it not have been deserved”.
In the same way, when Aragon refuses it, Jacques Prévert, pretending severity, says to him: “Is very well to refuse it; but still must it not have been deserved”.
on October 16th, 2006, the president of the Organization of higher Education Turkish and former vice-chancellor of the University Galatasaray, Prof Erdogan Teziç, returned the Legion of honor which it had received the September 17th 2004 to protest against the adoption of the law by the French National Assembly aiming at penalizing the negation of the Armenian genocide.

Quotations

“In France, the mourning of the convictions goes in red and to the buttonhole” , Jules Renard, Journal .
“If one wanted to give me the legion of honor, I would seek it in slipway so that they do not know where to put it” , Coluche
“the Legion of honor, that does not wonder, that does not refuse and that does not go” François Mauriac

Museum of the Legion of honor

National museum of the Legion of honor

2, rue de la Légion d' honor 75007 Paris (in the past street of Bellechasse) - the RER C: Museum of Orsay
Horaires:
Open of the Wednesday to Sunday of 13:00 to 18:00,
Tuesday, accessible to the groups over reservation,
Closed Monday as well as the January 1st, May 1st, August 15th, November 1st and December 25th.

Tarif: Free

Military units

Army

23e regiment of infantry of line

26e regiment of infantry of line

57e regiment of infantry of line

137e regiment of infantry of line

152e regiment of infantry of line

1st regiment parachutist of marines

1st regiment of marines

2nd regiment of marines

Regiment of infantry-tanks of navy

1st marine artillery regiment

11th marine artillery regiment

3rd foreign regiment of infantry

2nd foreign regiment parachutists

1st regiment of the train

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