LEGION OF HONOUR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18225, 19 October 1922, Page 7

LEGION OF HONOUR.

THE ORDER DECLINED.

POET REFUSES DECORATION In view of the fact that there are now over 100,000 persons entitleoTto wear th< red ribbon of the Legion of Honour, it it interesting to note that Francis Jammes, one of the moat distinguished of living poeta in France, has thought fit to refuse membership of the highest Order existing in that country. It has been generally understood for soma time that his name would figure in the next list of promotions to the Order., Early in August the Minister" of Instruction Pubiique, M. Leon Berard, informed the poet that he was to be nominated for the grade of Chevalier. M. Jammes rephed laconically : "Je remercie et je refuse," with tho result that his name did not figure in the list recently published. In reply to a request from the Matin lq state the reasons for his unusaal step, Francis Jammes now states :—" I am sincerely grateful to M. Berard for having wished to atone for what has appeared to him to have been either an injustice or misunderstanding on the part of his pre- , deeessors, but I think, the work of a ! poet can do without official consecration, ! and that the love which be gives to it J and which lie receives in exchange for it; is recompemie beyond all others." j A good deal of comment has- been ex- ! cited in Paris at the fact that, although the recent list issued by the Foreign Office of nominations to the Legion of Honour, which consisted "of between seventy and eighty names, included those of nineteen Americans and representatives of a large mumber of other countries, not a single British subject figured in it. I The explanation given by many people I is that the omission is. in no way" due'to the initiative of the Fircnch Government, but solely to the disinclination of the Foreign Office to permit more than a very limited number of! decorations to be conferred on British subjects. English resu dents in Paris will recall the fact that on the occasion of the recent Royal visit it was reported that some eighty applications for decorations were submitted to ths Quai d'Orsiiy with negative result*