Skip to content
Curated category

French recipients of the Legion of Honour

  • Victor HugoVictor Hugo died on the 22nd of May 1885, at 50 Avenue Victor Hugo in Paris. He was 83 years old, and he died of pneumonia.
  • Joseph-Louis LagrangeJoseph-Louis Lagrange was born Giuseppe Lodovico Lagrangia in Turin on the 25th of January 1736, the firstborn of eleven children.
  • Le CorbusierLe Corbusier insisted that "a house is a machine to live in," a maxim that would unsettle architects for a century. The man who wrote it was born…
  • Auguste RodinAuguste Rodin was born into a working-class family in Paris on the 12th of November 1840, and he died 77 years later on the 17th of November 1917 -- just…
  • François MitterrandFrançois Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand arrived in this world on the 26th of October 1916 in the small Charente town of Jarnac, and he died in Paris on the…
  • Napoleon IIINapoleon III was born in the Tuileries Palace in Paris on the night of the 19th-the 20th of April 1808 - the first Bonaparte prince born after the…
  • Tony ParkerTony Parker walked into the San Antonio Spurs' summer camp before the 2001 NBA draft as an unknown teenager from France.
  • Édouard DaladierÉdouard Daladier landed at Le Bourget Airfield on the 30th of September 1938 to a crowd of cheering Parisians. They waved and shouted, relieved that the man…
  • Louis PasteurOn the 6th of July 1885, Louis Pasteur faced a choice that could have ended in his prosecution. A 9-year-old boy named Joseph Meister had been badly mauled…
  • Claude Lévi-StraussClaude Lévi-Strauss died on the 30th of October 2009, at the age of 100, and for four days the world did not know. When French President Nicolas Sarkozy…
  • Jean CocteauJean Cocteau called himself a poet, and only a poet, even after he had written novels, staged plays, drawn erotica, and directed films that critics still…
  • Auguste de MarmontAuguste Frédéric Louis Viesse de Marmont was a man the French came to despise, not for losing battles, but for ending one.
  • Jérôme BonaparteJérôme Bonaparte was born in Ajaccio, Corsica on the 15th of November 1784. He was the eighth and last surviving child of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia…
  • Jules RimetJules Rimet crossed the Atlantic in 1930 carrying a trophy in his bag. No guards, no ceremony; just a French football administrator on a steamship called the…
  • Kylian MbappéKylian Mbappé stood in a stadium of 80,000 people on the 16th of July 2024, wearing the number 9 shirt of Real Madrid. He was 25 years old.
  • Charles XIV JohnCharles XIV John of Sweden was born Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte on the 26th of January 1763 in Pau, a small city in the southwestern province of Béarn.
  • Emmanuel Joseph SieyèsEmmanuel Joseph Sieyès published a slim pamphlet in January 1789 and, within months, helped bring down a social order that had stood for centuries.
  • Napoleon IINapoleon II was Emperor of the French for exactly two days. He never sat on the throne. He never held a scepter. He never gave an order that anyone was bound…
  • Charles-Pierre AugereauCharles-Pierre-François Augereau was born on the 21st of October 1757 in Faubourg Saint-Marceau, Paris, the son of a fruit seller.
  • Louis Philippe ILouis Philippe I stepped onto the throne of France in August 1830 having already lived more lives than most kings ever get.
  • Pierre-Simon LaplacePierre-Simon Laplace stood before Napoleon Bonaparte in the early years of the nineteenth century and handed him a copy of his book on the universe.
  • Alexis de TocquevilleAlexis de Tocqueville sailed to the United States in 1831 on a narrow assignment. The July Monarchy had sent him to examine American prisons and…
  • Georges DumézilGeorges Dumézil was born in Paris on the 4th of March 1898, the son of a highly educated general in the French Army. By the time he died in the same city on…
  • Victor DuruyVictor Duruy was born in Paris on the 10th of September 1811, the son of a factory worker, and his family expected him to follow his father into the trade.
  • Józef PoniatowskiJózef Poniatowski spent more than three decades in uniform, fighting under three different flags before his life ended in a chaotic retreat in Germany.
  • Michel NeyMichel Ney stood before a firing squad in Paris on the 7th of December 1815 and refused to wear a blindfold. His reason was simple and devastating: he had…
  • George SteinerFrancis George Steiner was born on the 23rd of April 1929 in Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris. His right arm withered from birth yet his mother insisted he use…
  • Louis de BroglieLouis de Broglie was born on the 15th of August 1892 in Dieppe, France, into a noble family that had sent soldiers and statesmen to French courts for…
  • George CœdèsGeorge Cœdès was born in Paris on the 10th of August 1886, and by the time he died on the 2nd of October 1969, he had done something few scholars manage: he…
  • Fabien BarthezFabien Barthez let a teammate kiss the top of his shaved head before kickoff, a ritual meant to bring good luck to France's goalkeeper.
  • Paul PogbaPaul Labile Pogba was born on the 15th of March 1993 in Lagny-sur-Marne, France, to Guinean parents, and by his early twenties he had become the most…