Légion d honneur eligibility
Chevalier de la légion d'honneur in english.
Napoleon iii cause of death
The Légion d’Honneur
The Légion d'Honneur is currently the oldest existing order in France, since those of the Ancien Régime disappeared definitively in 1830 and no other imperial order survived events of 1815.
As a result of this situation, the Légion is often seen not only as Napoleonic but also strongly linked to the orders which were abolished, such as the Ordre du Saint-Esprit (reserved for the nobility), the Ordre de Saint-Louis (a military decoration), and the secondary orders of the ancien régime, namely the Ordre de Saint-Michel and the Ordre de Saint-Lazare.
However, unlike those older orders, the Légion was never meant to be a mediaevalising chivalric order, restricted to certain social classes.
Originally there was no costume, chapter or insignia – indeed Napoléon writing to his brother Louis on 7 January, 1807, described the chivalric orders as 'ridiculous', closing with the words 'The Légion d'Honneur has never been seen as an Order o
