Classes
The Order of Leopold is issued in five classes:
- Grand Cordon ('Grootlint'), who wears the badge on a collar (chain) or on a sash on the right shoulder, plus the star on the left side of the chest;
- Grand Officer ('Grootofficier'), who wears a badge on a necklet, plus a star on the left side of the chest (created on 31 December 1838);
- Commander ('Commandeur'), who wears the badge on a necklet;
- Officer ('Officier'), who wears the badge on a ribbon with rosette on the left side of the chest;
- Knight ('Chevalier/Ridder'), who wears the badge on a ribbon on the left side of the chest.
All five classes come in three divisions (civil, military, maritime).
Only the Belgian king is entitled to chair the order and to be named Grand Master ('Grootmeester'). The Grand Cordon title is reserved in general for national and foreign royals, heads of state, Belgian senior cabinet ministers and former Prime Ministers, 3-star generals and a few senior civil servants.
Read more about this topic: Order Of Leopold (Belgium)
Famous quotes containing the word classes:
“When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“The most powerful lessons about ethics and morality do not come from school discussions or classes in character building. They come from family life where people treat one another with respect, consideration, and love.”
—Neil Kurshan (20th century)
“What’s the greatest enemy of Christianity to-day? Frozen meat. In the past only members of the upper classes were thoroughly sceptical, despairing, negative. Why? Among other reasons, because they were the only people who could afford to eat too much meat. Now there’s cheap Canterbury lamb and Argentine chilled beef. Even the poor can afford to poison themselves into complete scepticism and despair.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)