Grand Officers of the Legion of Honour

Henri-Joseph Harpignies (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃ʁi ʒɔzɛf aʁpiɲi]; June 28, 1819 – August 28, 1916) was a French landscape painter of the Barbizon school.

Maurice de Broglie, 6th Duke of Broglie (27 April 1875 – 14 July 1960) was a French physicist. His younger brother was the theoretical physicist Louis de Broglie.

Pierre-Henri Teitgen (29 May 1908 – 6 April 1997) was a French lawyer, professor and politician. Teitgen was born in Rennes, Brittany. Taken POW in 1940, he played a major role in the French Resistance. Teitgen's father, Henri Teitgen (1882–1965), was a senior politician of the Popular Republican Movement.
A member of French Parliament from 1945 to 1958 for Ille-et-Vilaine, Pierre-Henri was president of the Popular Republican Movement (Christian Democratic Party) from 1952 to 1956. He was Minister of Information in 1944 (one of the founders of the daily Le Monde), Minister of Justice in 1945–1946 (in charge of the purges from government of the Vichy regime's followers and of Nazi collaborators), Minister of Defence in 1947–48 in Robert Schuman's government at the time of the insurrectional strikes. In May 1948, he attended the Congress of The Hague and worked closely with Robert Schuman in Schuman Declaration and the start of the European Community when he was Minister of Information and Civil service in 1949–1950. He was later Minister of Overseas in 1950. He was member of the Constitutional Committee in 1958. He was twice deputy prime minister in 1947–1948 and 1953–1954. He was member of the Consultative Constitutional Committee in 1958 but became a critic of de Gaulle's policies.He supported the Socialist Defferre in his attempt as candidate for presidency in 1965. In September 1976, he was appointed member of the European Court of Human Rights. He had helped to create the court some 27 years earlier, in 1949, outlining its powers and the rights it should protect in a report for the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe. Teitgen died in Paris in 1997.

Étienne-Émile Baulieu (born 12 December 1926) is a French biochemist and endocrinologist who is best known for his research in the field of steroid hormones and their role in reproduction and aging.

Maurice André Raymond Herzog (15 January 1919 – 13 December 2012) was a French mountaineer and administrator who was born in Lyon, France. He led the 1950 French Annapurna expedition that first climbed a peak over 8000m, Annapurna, in 1950, and reached the summit with Louis Lachenal. Upon his return, he wrote a best-selling book about the expedition, Annapurna.

François d'Astier de La Vigerie (7 March 1886 – 9 October 1956) was a French military leader during two World Wars.His family were from Vivarais, and were ennobled in 1829 under the French Restoration. His father, le baron Raoul d'Astier de La Vigerie, was an artillery officer, and his mother, Jeanne, née Masson-Bachasson de Montalivet, was the granddaughter of Camille, comte de Montalivet, who had been Minister of the Interior under Louis-Philippe I of France. François d’Astier was brought up partly in Paris and partly at the Château de Rançay at Niherne.

Émile Mâle (French: [emil mɑl]; 2 June 1862 – 6 October 1954) was a French art historian, one of the first to study medieval, mostly sacral French art and the influence of Eastern European iconography thereon. He was a member of the Académie française, and a director of the Académie de France à Rome.

Gustave Charpentier (French: [ɡystav ʃaʁpɑ̃tje]; 25 June 1860 – 18 February 1956) was a French composer, best known for his opera Louise.

Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot (24 February 1817 – 16 August 1882) was a French general. Ducrot served in the Crimean War, Algeria, the Italian campaign of 1859, and as a division commander in the Franco-Prussian War.

At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, Ducrot was tasked with overseeing the deployment of French forces due to his familiarity with the terrain near Wissembourg. His unsupported division was surprised and defeated by a large force of Prussians and Bavarians at the Battle of Wissembourg. At the Battle of Sedan on 1 September 1870, he succeeded to command of the French army when Marshal MacMahon was wounded early in the morning. By that time, it was obvious that a disastrous defeat was inevitable. Ducrot summed up the situation with the famous remark: « Nous sommes dans un pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerdés. » ("We are in a chamber pot, and we're going to be shit on.")
Ducrot ordered the army to withdraw, but then General de Wimpffen presented a commission authorizing him to succeed MacMahon. Wimpffen overruled Ducrot, and ordered a counterattack that failed completely. Emperor Napoleon III, present on the battlefield, then surrendered the army to the Prussians.
With de Wimpffen having insisted on command, Ducrot refused to accept responsibility for signing the articles of surrender and was imprisoned by the Prussians. He soon escaped, and took part in the Siege of Paris. Ducrot commanded the most important French attack against the Prussian besiegers (the Battle of Villiers, 29 November–3 December 1870). After the defeat of this attack, Ducrot urged the French government to make peace. Cyclist Maarten Ducrot is his great-grandson.