Knights of the Legion of Honour

Georges de Feure (real name Georges Joseph van Sluijters, 6 September 1868 – 26 November 1943) was a French painter, theatrical designer, and industrial art designer in the symbolism and Art Nouveau styles.
De Feure was born in Paris. His father was an affluent Dutch architect, and his mother was Belgian. De Feure had two sons, Jean Corneille and Pierre Louis, in the early 1890s with his mistress Pauline Domec and a daughter with his first wife Marguerite Guibert (married 7 July 1897).
In 1886, de Feure was one of the eleven students admitted at the Rijksacademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, which he did however leave very quickly for Paris since he felt that formal academic training had nothing to offer him. Being of very independent nature, de Feure never again took up formal artistic studies, and forged his own independent path. He was however influenced by Jules Chéret in his posters for the café concert but most likely was never his pupil and became the key designer of Siegfried Bing for L'Art Nouveau.
He showed work in the Exposition Universelle de Paris exhibition in 1900. He designed furniture, worked for newspapers, created theater designs for Le Chat Noir cabaret and posters. In August 1901, de Feure was nominated Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur for his contribution to the decorative arts. He died in poverty at the age of 75 years in Paris.

Simone Segouin (French: [simɔn səɡwɛ̃]; 3 October 1925 – 21 February 2023), also known by her nom de guerre Nicole Minet (French: [nikɔl minɛ]), was a French Resistance fighter who served in the Francs-tireurs et partisans group during World War II. Among her first acts of resistance was stealing a bicycle from a German patrol, which she then used to help carry messages. She went on to take part in large-scale or otherwise dangerous missions, such as capturing German troops, derailing trains, and acts of sabotage.

Firmine Richard (born 25 September 1947 Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, France) is a French actress. Her film credits include 8 Women and Hunting and Gathering.

Juliette Dodu (Saint-Denis de la Réunion, June 15, 1848 – October 28, 1909) was a legendary heroine of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and the first woman to be awarded the Legion of Honor. However, many doubts have been raised about her actions during the war, and her story remains controversial.

Georges Albert Édouard Brutus Gilles de la Tourette (French: [ʒɔʁʒ albɛʁ edwaʁ bʁytys ʒil də la tuʁɛt]; 30 October 1857 – 22 May 1904) was a French neurologist and the namesake of Tourette syndrome, a neurological condition characterized by tics. His main contributions in medicine were in the fields of hypnotism and hysteria.

Hégésippe Jean Légitimus was born in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe on 8 April 1868 and died before the end of World War II in Angles-sur-l'Anglin, France, on 29 November 1944. He was a socialist politician from Guadeloupe who served in the French National Assembly from 1898–1902 and 1906-1914.In 1793, Jean-Baptiste Belley was the first black man elected to the French Parliament. It would be 105 years later before another black man, Hégésippe Légitimus, was elected. Up until 1898 the colonies and territoires d'Outre-Mer had only been represented by white, mixed-race or "béké" deputies.Légitimus was followed shortly afterwards by other black deputies: Gratien Candace, Blaise Diagne, Ngalandou Diouf, Achille René-Boisneuf and Maurice Satineau. He sat in the parliamentary assembly alongside Guesde, Jean Jaurès and Léon Blum, becoming good friends with them.
Légitimus was one of the founders of the Parti Ouvrier, the socialist party of Guadaloupe. It was politically aligned with that of mainland France.Légitimus, councillor and mayor of Pointe-à-Pitre, founder of the socialist movement in Guadeloupe, Member of Parliament in Paris, made an indelible mark on French political life at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The price of sugar went through the roof during the US Civil War (1861-1865). But it began to fall again in 1870, creating a crisis that had the effect of rationalising capital, wealth and production on one hand against the abolition of slave labour, unreliable production and social upheaval and war on the other hand. The crisis, and consequent world-wide disruption, continued until 1914, whereupon many families had migrated from Guadeloupe to live in mainland France.
Socialism rose up in the thoughts and actions of workers, including the black slaves and workers on the sugar plantations, and amongst the intelligentsia. In 1914, the war to end all world wars began. Socialist parties quickly grew in number, strength and influence throughout recognised world diaspora. Hégésippe Légitimus was the founder and driving force of the Socialist Party in Guadeloupe.
Légitimus also founded the Republican Youth Committee and the Workers Party of Guadeloupe. He established a newspaper called "The People" in 1891. The Workers Party was politically aligned to the socialist-left and quickly became popular amongst the Guadeloupeans. It became very popular because it was the first Party to defend workers' rights and give a united voice to the black population. Légitimus entered the House of Deputies as the member for Guadeloupe in 1898. He became President of the Council in 1899 and was elected Mayor of Pointe-à-Pitre in 1904.
The new order of politics, aligned with that of mainland France, exemplified by Legitimus's socialist credo, attacked the virtual monopoly held by mulattoes in Guadeloupean business and politics. Mulattoes were accused by many people of acting against the interests of the black population. But, Légitimus also earned his share of critics because he was accused of collaborating with "the big end of town" over bank start-up finances needed by small businesses and support capital needed by on-going, large projects. Economic necessities in the circumstances, as always, might have required a cautious, rather than radical, approach.
For a quarter of a century Légitimus was considered the voice of the black movement. Some called him the black Jaurès. Jean Jaurès was the famous French socialist, pacifist and intellectual assassinated by a young fascist war-monger in Montmartre at the beginning of WW1. Légitimus helped open the doors of tertiary education to everyone. He supported the political careers of Gaston Monnerville, the grandson of a slave who had a brilliant legal and political career in France, and Felix Eboue, who was appointed governor of Guadeloupe in 1936.
Hégésippe Jean Légitimus was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1937. He was obliged to stay in France because of the declaration of war and died in Angles-sur-l'Anglin on 29 November 1944. Following a proposal by General de Gaulle, his remains were returned to Guadeloupe where he was given a state funeral. Several boulevards in Guadeloupe are named after Hégésippe and the main one has his bust displayed, perpetuating the memory of this great black leader and politician. During the commemoration of the sesquicentennial of the abolition of slavery in May 1988 several plaques were unveiled in his memory in front of more than fifty of his descendants. The commemoration was chaired by Gésip Légitimus, a grandson of this exceptional man.
Hégésippe's son, Victor-Étienne Légitimus, journalist and husband of the actress Darling Légitimus, created La Solidarité Antillaise (The Caribbean Solidarity) to defend the interests of his compatriots. He actively participated in the creation of The Movement Against Racism and For Friendship Amongst Peoples (MRAP) and The International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA).
Légitimus wrote in an article in The People, 4 February 1894:—
"The free man is made for speaking, as is the bird for singing.
Woe be he if, intelligent, able to be useful to his people, to humanity thanks to his moral and intellectual faculties, he satisfies himself with vegetating miserably between fear and lazy pleasures!
We are made for the struggle
And whichever way we choose to direct our faculties,
It as an imperious law that impels us to implement them.(...)
I want mankind happy and smiling, I want a proclaimed and recognized equality between all and by all.
I want the light to be diffused in torrents, profusely; no more ignorant people and no more proletarians!

All men reunited as one huge family sharing the air, the sun, the water and the bread, with a kiss."

Renaud Capuçon (born 27 January 1976) is a French classical violinist.
Since late 2016 he has been teaching at the Royal Northern College of Music.

Abel-Marie Alexis Decaux (11 February 1869 – 19 March 1943) was a French organist, composer, and pedagogue, best known for his piano suite Clairs de lune, some of the earliest pieces of dodecaphony.
A student of Théodore Dubois, Jules Massenet, and Charles-Marie Widor, among others, he was the titular organist of the grand organ of the Sacré-Cœur basilica. Decaux was more renowned as a player and professor during his lifetime than a composer.
He is popularly known as the "French Schoenberg".

Paul-Louis Simond (30 July 1858 – 3 March 1947) was a French physician, chief medical officer and biologist whose major contribution to science was his demonstration that the intermediates in the transmission of bubonic plague from rats to humans are the fleas Xenopsylla cheopis that dwell on infected rats.

Louis Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Bachelier (French: [baʃəlje]; 11 March 1870 – 28 April 1946) was a French mathematician at the turn of the 20th century. He is credited with being the first person to model the stochastic process now called Brownian motion, as part of his doctoral thesis The Theory of Speculation (Théorie de la spéculation, defended in 1900).
Bachelier's doctoral thesis, which introduced the first mathematical model of Brownian motion and its use for valuing stock options, was the first paper to use advanced mathematics in the study of finance. His Bachelier model has been influential in the development of other widely used models, including the Black-Scholes model.
Bachelier is considered as the forefather of mathematical finance and a pioneer in the study of stochastic processes.