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:
“There are four classes of idols which beset men’s minds. To these for distinction’s sake I have assigned names—calling the first class Idols of the Tribe; the second, Idols of the Cave; the third, Idols of the Market-Place; the fourth, Idols of the Theatre.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“There were three classes of inhabitants who either frequent or inhabit the country which we had now entered: first, the loggers, who, for a part of the year, the winter and spring, are far the most numerous, but in the summer, except for a few explorers for timber, completely desert it; second, the few settlers I have named, the only permanent inhabitants, who live on the verge of it, and help raise supplies for the former; third, the hunters, mostly Indians, who range over it in their season.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I am ... by tradition and long study a complete snob. P. Marlowe and I do not despise the upper classes because they take baths and have money; we despise them because they are phony.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)