J.K. Rowling has been presented
with an honorary French knighthood. She said that the honor was extra special to her as her great-grandfather was French and had received the honor for bravery during World War I.
President Nicolas Sarkozy bestowed the title of knight in the Legion of Honor on Rowling, who used her acceptance speech to apologize for the quality of her French accent and for having given one of the villains in her series a French name.
"I cannot say that I think that I truly deserve it, but the Legion of Honor has a particular and personal meaning," she said in a ceremony in an ornate presidential palace ballroom.
One of her great-grandfathers, who was French, had received it in 1924 for his courage in the Battle of Verdun during the First World War, she said.
Rowling also thanked her readers in France "for not having held a grudge against me for having given a French name to my evil character" in the series — Lord Voldemort.
"I can assure you that no anti-French feeling was at the origin of this choice," she said. "As a Francophile, I have always been proud of my French blood. But I needed a name that evokes both power and exoticism."
"Voldemort himself is 100-percent English," Rowling said in French, pleading with the audience that included young French teens to forgive her accent. She noted that she had once taught French in Scotland.
