• Submitted by: lena campos
• Personalities
• 01 / 31 / 2013

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The Havana's Historian, Eusebio Leal, was awarded here today with the Order of Commander of the Legion of Honour, the highest honor given by the French government.

Established by Napoleon in 1802, the Legion of Honour is awarded to men and women, whether French or foreign, for outstanding achievements made within the civil or military.

The President of the French Senate, Jean Pierre Bel, visiting Cuba for the occasion, expressed that Leal's vast culture admiration for France impresses him.

Eusebio, Bel stressed, represents the friendship between two cultures, bonds that sometimes stretch but not break, linked to Victor Hugo's France, he said. It is a pleasure and an honor, he said, to get him the French Republic's recognition.

In a ceremony held at the Havana's Napoleonic Museum, which is one of the five most important of its kind worlwide, Leal thanked the award that, he said, was created in years of passion and glory.

Recieving the Legion of Honour, Leal said, means thinking about Brindis de Salas, in Carlos J. Finlay, Joaquin Albarran, who are figures of Cuba's thinking, science, and arts.

It also makes me think about my contemporaries, some of whom are with me and have different degrees of the Legion, which have thus received the recognition of a Universal Nation that contributed so much to the arts and human dignity.

Awarded the rank of Knight and Officer of the Legion of Honour, Leal and Academic Eduardo Torres Cuevas are the Cubans who have won the award.

 
Source: Prensa Latina