French honour for Cambridge Professor

Professor Peter Bayley has been made a Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques.

The Order, which was created by Napoleon in 1808 on his return home from his campaign in Egypt, recognises the range and impact of scholarly writing by intellectuals. Several people at the University hold the position of Chevalier and Officier, but Professor Bayley is the only British Professor under retirement age to be made Commandeur.

Professor Bayley is the Drapers Professor of French at the University and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College. He specialises in early modern literature, especially religious writing, rhetoric and memoirs.

He is the author of French Pulpit Oratory, 1598-1650 (CUP, 1980) and Selected Sermons of the French Baroque (Garland, 1983), and the editor of 'The Equilibrium of Wit', French Forum, 1982 and Présences du Moyen Âge et de la Renaissance en France au XVIIe siècle (Romanice, 2003). He is currently co-editing a volume of essays on Saint-Simon and writing a book on Bossuet.

Professor Bayley was Head of the University's French Department from 1983 to 1996 and Chairman of the School of Arts and Humanities from 2000 to 2002.

Known as the decoration violette, in reference to the colour of the rosette worn by its members, the Order is under the patronage of the French President, the Minister for Education and the Grand Chancelier de la Legion d’Honneur. It was presented by Olivier Chambard, Consellier Culturel in the French Embassy in London, at an investiture at New Hall earlier this year.

Professor Bayley said: "It is a great honour and demonstrates French concern and awareness of the teaching of their language and culture outside France".

Two other professors in the department, Wendy Bennett and Philip Ford, were made Officier at the same time, underlining the success and prestige of the Cambridge French department.