Paris Museum of the Legion of Honor reopens

Boarded up for renovations for five long years, the Museum of the Legion of Honor in Paris has opened again. It faces the Musee D’Orsay on the Left Bank and occupies a wing of one of the city’s finest palaces, the Hotel de Salm, completed in 1788 and much admired by Thomas Jefferson.

The museum first opened in 1925 to showcase French national decorations such as the royal orders of St. Michel, founded in 1469, and especially the Legion of Honor, created by Napoleon in 1802.

Visiting the renovated museum gives visitors a chance to peek into the exquisite, neoclassical Hotel de Salm. Its galleries explain why orders of merit came into being and identify recipients such as Thomas Wiltberger Evans, dentist of Napoleon III, and Maurice Floquet, France’s oldest surviving veteran of World War I (who died in 2006).

Foreigners have sometimes been recognized by the French Legion of Honor, including Japanese director Akira Kurosawa and American wine critic Robert Parker.

If you yearn to wear a medal that looks something like this, you must strive to serve France or the ideals it represents: liberté, égalité, fraternité, not to mention French wine.

— Susan Spano, Times staff writer

Photo credits: Museum of the Legion of Honor website

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at 10:21 am by Susan Spano and is filed under Europe, France. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.