Skip to content
Curated category

French recipients of the Legion of Honour

  • Victor HugoVictor-Marie Hugo was born on the 26th of February 1802 in Besançon, a city in eastern France. His father Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo served as a general…
  • Joseph-Louis LagrangeGiuseppe Luigi Lagrangia was born in Turin on the 25th of January 1736. He grew up as the firstborn of eleven children in a family that had lost most of its…
  • Le CorbusierCharles-Édouard Jeanneret was born on the 6th of October 1887 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a city nestled in the Jura Mountains near the French border.
  • Auguste RodinFrançois Auguste René Rodin was born on the 12th of November 1840 into a working-class family in Paris. His father Jean-Baptiste Rodin worked as a police…
  • François MitterrandFrançois Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was born on the 26th of October 1916 in Jarnac, Charente. His family was devoutly Catholic and conservative.
  • Napoleon IIICharles-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Paris on the night of 19 to the 20th of April 1808. His father Louis ruled Holland from 1806 until 1810.
  • Tony ParkerWilliam Anthony Parker Jr. arrived in the world on the 17th of May 1982, inside a hospital in Bruges, Belgium. His father Tony Parker Sr.
  • Édouard DaladierÉdouard Daladier was born in Carpentras, a town in the Vaucluse region of France, on the 18th of June 1884. He grew up as the son of a village baker and…
  • 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 was born on the 28th of November 1908 in Brussels. His parents were French Jews who had moved there for his father's work as a portrait…
  • Jean CocteauJean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was born in Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines, on the 5th of July 1889. His father Georges died by suicide when Jean was nine…
  • Auguste de MarmontAuguste Frédéric Louis Viesse de Marmont was born on the 20th of July 1774 in Châtillon-sur-Seine. His father served as an ex-officer within the petite…
  • 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 was born on the 14th of October 1873 in Theuley, a small commune in eastern France. His father worked as a grocer and the family moved to Paris…
  • Kylian MbappéKylian Mbappé Lottin arrived into the world on the 20th of December 1998 within the 19th arrondissement of Paris. He grew up in Bondy, a suburb located to…
  • Charles XIV JohnJean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte was born on the 26th of January 1763 in Pau, the capital of Béarn. He entered the army as a private soldier on the 3rd of…
  • Emmanuel Joseph SieyèsEmmanuel Joseph Sieyès was born on the 3rd of May 1748 in Fréjus, a southern French town. He entered the seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris and spent ten…
  • Napoleon IINapoleon II entered the world on the 20th of March 1811 inside the Tuileries Palace in Paris. His father was Emperor Napoleon I and his mother was Empress…
  • Charles-Pierre AugereauCharles-Pierre Augereau was born in the Faubourg Saint-Marceau district of Paris on the 21st of October 1757. His father worked as a fruit seller, though…
  • Louis Philippe ILouis Philippe was born in the Palais-Royal on the 6th of October 1773. He grew up as a Prince of the Blood within the House of Bourbon.
  • Pierre-Simon LaplacePierre-Simon Laplace was born on the 23rd of March 1749 in Beaumont-en-Auge, a small village four miles west of Pont l'Évêque.
  • Alexis de TocquevilleAlexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville entered the world on the 29th of July 1805. He descended from an old Norman family that had produced…
  • Georges DumézilGeorges Dumézil was born in Paris on the 4th of March 1898. His father Jean Dumézil served as a highly educated general in the French Army.
  • Victor DuruyJean Victor Duruy entered the world on the 10th of September 1811 in Paris. His father worked as a factory worker and expected his son to follow that trade.
  • Józef PoniatowskiPrince Józef Antoni Poniatowski entered the world on the 7th of May 1763 inside Vienna's Palais Kinsky. His mother Countess Maria Theresia Kinsky von…
  • Michel NeyMichel Ney was born in the town of Sarrelouis on the 10th of January 1769. He grew up as the second son of Pierre Ney, a master cooper who had served in the…
  • 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 Victor Pierre Raymond, 7th Duc de Broglie, entered the world on the 15th of August 1892 in Dieppe, France. He belonged to a noble family that had held…
  • George CœdèsGeorge Cœdès entered the world on the 10th of August 1886 within the city limits of Paris. His family lineage traced back to Strasbourg before the year 1740…
  • Fabien BarthezFabien Alain Barthez entered the world on the 28th of June 1971 in the small town of Lavelanet, located within the Ariège department of France.
  • Paul PogbaPaul Labile Pogba arrived in the world on the 15th of March 1993 within the town of Lagny-sur-Marne. His parents traced their roots back to Guinea…