Legion of Honour

• 1. Introduction

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  The Legion of Honour has been pinned to the chests of soldiers, scientists, artists, and heads of state for more than two centuries. Napoleon Bonaparte established it in 1802 with a particular conviction: that men are not led by reason alone. He put the argument bluntly. "You call these baubles," he acknowledged, "well, it is with baubles that men are led." A simple ribbon and a five-armed cross, it turns out, could hold an empire together.

  The order he created was unlike anything France had seen before. Under the old monarchy, such honours went only to Catholic noblemen. The Legion was open to every rank, every profession, every faith. Only merit or bravery counted. That radical idea outlasted Napoleon himself, outlasted the monarchy that replaced him, outlasted the republic that replaced the monarchy, outlasted the empire that replaced that republic. Every government France has had since 1802 has kept the order alive.

  Why does a symbol carry that kind of staying power? What does it mean to belong to an institution that has tracked the entire arc of modern French history, from Napoleonic conquest to the Fifth Republic? And what happens when the story of an honour becomes inseparable from the story of a nation?

• 2. Napoleon's Political Gamble

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  Napoleon's design for the Legion was explicitly not a new order of chivalry. He had watched the French Revolution sweep away all of the old chivalric orders, and he was careful not to revive the vocabulary of nobility. The body he created was patterned loosely after a Roman legion, complete with legionaries, officers, commanders, regional cohorts, and a grand council. The highest rank was not a Grand Cross but a Grand Eagle.

  From the start, the order carried a frank political purpose. Napoleon intended it as a vehicle for loyalty, a way to distribute favours, gifts, and concessions. Members were paid, and the payments were calibrated precisely to rank: a légionnaire received 250 francs, an officier received 1,000, a commandeur received 2,000, and a grand officier received 5,000.

  Napoleon was known, after a battle, to ask a regiment who its bravest man was. When they named him, the Emperor would take his own Legion cross from his coat and pin it on that soldier's chest. The gesture cost almost nothing. Its effect was incalculable.

  The order was also genuinely new in one important philosophical respect. Previous French honours were restricted to Roman Catholics and to men of noble birth. The Legion accepted men of all ranks, all professions, and all faiths. A secular institution in a country shaped by centuries of Catholic monarchy, it had only one true predecessor anywhere in Europe: the Swedish Order of Vasa, which had also opened membership to everyone, and which predated the Legion by a short margin.

  Napoleon dispensed fifteen golden collars of the Legion among his family and senior ministers. That collar was abolished in 1815. Before it disappeared, the order had made its mark deeply enough that no successor government would dare eliminate it entirely.

• 3. Surviving Every Regime

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  When the Bourbon king Louis XVIII returned to the French throne in 1814, he faced a difficult calculation. The Legion bore Napoleon's image and Napoleon's eagle. It was also worn by between 35,000 and 38,000 Frenchmen. Abolishing it would have created tens of thousands of enemies overnight.

  Louis chose to alter rather than destroy. Napoleon's portrait was removed and replaced with the image of King Henry IV, the first and most beloved king of the Bourbon line. Three Bourbon fleurs-de-lys took the eagle's place on the reverse. The imperial crown gave way to a king's crown. In 1816, ranks were reorganised and legionnaires became knights. The order slipped to second place in the hierarchy of the French monarchy, behind the Order of the Holy Spirit, but it survived.

  The July Monarchy of Louis Philippe I brought the Legion back to the top in 1830, with tricolour flags now displayed on the cross. By 1847, membership had grown to 47,000.

  In 1852, the first recorded woman to enter the order was Angélique Duchemin, an old revolutionary of the 1789 uprising. She was admitted during the Second Republic. That same republic's president, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, staged a coup on the 2nd of December 1851 and made himself Emperor exactly one year later, on the 2nd of December 1852.

  The Second Empire brought in its first American recipient: Thomas Wiltberger Evans, the personal dentist of Napoleon III. The Third Republic replaced the imperial crown on the cross with a laurel and oak wreath. The Paris Commune uprising of 1871 burned the Legion's headquarters, the Hôtel de Salm, to the ground. The archives were lost entirely. Through war, revolution, and fire, the decoration itself persisted.

  A scandal in the second term of President Jules Grévy, which began in 1885, exposed his son-in-law Daniel Wilson trafficking in Legion decorations. Grévy was not directly implicated, but his reluctance to accept indirect responsibility forced his resignation on the 2nd of December 1887.

• 4. The Badge and Its Many Faces

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  The current badge of the Legion is shaped as a five-armed form, a "Maltese Asterisk" with arrowhead arms inspired by the Maltese Cross. It is rendered in gilt enamel, white, with a laurel and oak wreath between the arms. The obverse carries the head of Marianne, symbol of the French Republic, surrounded by the words "République Française" on a blue enamel ring. The reverse shows crossed tricolores and the order's motto, "Honneur et Patrie," meaning Honour and Fatherland.

  But that badge took twelve distinct forms before reaching its current state. The first model, used for just nine months between May 1804 and February 1805, had no crown or wreath as a hanging device. It showed the Emperor on the obverse and the imperial eagle on the reverse. Each subsequent regime altered the central disc and the hanging device to match its own political symbols.

  The Bourbon Restoration added a fleur-de-lys to the crown and put Henry IV's profile on the front. The July Monarchy kept Henry IV but changed the ring text and introduced the crossed tricolores on the reverse, a feature that would reappear in nearly every version from that point on. The Second Republic's model, used for only three years, dropped the hanging device entirely and inscribed "Bonaparte First Consul" with the founding date of the 19th of May 1802.

  The current version, the twelfth model, dates from the establishment of the Fourth Republic in 1946. Its only change from the Third Republic's design was replacing the date "1870" on the obverse with a single star, and adding on the reverse the order's founding date in the French Revolutionary Calendar: 29 Floréal Year 10. That form has remained unchanged through both the Fourth and the Fifth Republic.

  For everyday wear, recipients do not carry the full badge. Chevaliers and officiers wear a simple red thread sewn onto a lapel. Commandeurs wear a silver thread. Women typically wear a small lapel pin called a barrette. The full badge comes out only at decoration ceremonies or on formal dress. Recipients purchase their thread and barrettes at a specific store in Paris near the Palais-Royal.

• 5. Membership and Its Limits

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  Entry into the Legion is not a simple reward. A chevalier, the lowest rank, must demonstrate at least twenty years of public service or twenty-five years of professional activity with what the rules call "eminent merits." That phrase has a specific meaning: flawless performance of one's work, plus something beyond the ordinary, such as creativity, zeal, or a measurable contribution to the well-being of others.

  Promotion through the five classes requires years spent in each preceding rank. A chevalier must serve at least eight years before becoming an officier. An officier waits five years before becoming a commandeur. The Legion caps its membership: no more than 75 Grand Cross, 250 Grand Officers, 1,250 Commanders, 10,000 Officers, and 113,425 ordinary Knights may hold rank at any one time.

  Until 2008, French nationals could only enter at the chevalier level. A reform that year opened entry at Officer, Commander, and Grand Officer levels for what the rules describe as "extraordinary careers." In 2009, Simone Veil became the first person to enter the order at Grand Officer level. Veil was an Auschwitz survivor, a former Health Minister, a former President of the European Parliament, and a member of the Académie française. She was promoted to Grand Cross in 2012.

  Not everyone accepts the honour. Every year at least five recipients decline. Under the rules, declining recipients are still recorded as members. The composer Maurice Ravel refused the award when it was offered. So did the composer Charles Koechlin.

  Members convicted of a felony are automatically removed from the order. Members convicted of a misdemeanour may be dismissed, though that is not automatic. Wearing the Legion decoration without the right to do so is treated as a serious offence. Wearing any foreign ribbon that is mainly red is also prohibited, because of its resemblance to the Legion's own red ribbon.

• 6. Foreign Honours and Collective Awards

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  While the Legion is technically restricted to French nationals, foreign nationals who have served France or the values it upholds may receive it. Foreign heads of state and the spouses or consorts of monarchs are made Grand Cross as a matter of protocol. American and British veterans who served on French soil in either World War, or during the 1944 liberation campaigns, may be eligible for appointment as chevalier, provided they were still living when the honour was approved.

  During the First World War alone, some 55,000 decorations were conferred. Of those, around 20,000 went to foreigners. The scale was driven in part by a change in 1918 that allowed posthumous awards for the first time. Posthumous membership had been traditionally forbidden.

  The order also makes collective appointments. A total of sixty-four French settlements have been decorated. Six foreign cities have received the honour: Liège in 1914, Belgrade in 1920, Luxembourg City in 1957, Volgograd, the wartime Stalingrad, in 1984, Algiers in 2004, and London in 2020. French towns that have received the decoration display it in their municipal coat of arms.

  Institutions on the list include the French Red Cross, the French National Railway Company, the Prefecture of Police of Paris, and various elite educational establishments. The U.S. Military Academy has received the decoration as well.

  The Legion also oversees two elite boarding schools, in Saint-Denis and at Camp des Loges in the forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Admission to those schools is restricted to daughters, granddaughters, and great-granddaughters of members of the Legion, the Military Medal, or the National Order of Merit. The schools are funded and operated under the authority of the Grand Chancery, which since 2023 has been headed by retired general François Lecointre.