Part 4 (2/2)

Officers of artillery usually decorated their plates with cannons and cannon b.a.l.l.s below the arms; cavalry officers placed trophies of flags behind their s.h.i.+elds. The Admiral of France (answering to our old t.i.tle Lord High Admiral) bore two anchors in saltire behind his s.h.i.+eld, whilst admirals carried an anchor in pale behind their s.h.i.+elds. The Chancellor of France bore two maces in saltire behind his s.h.i.+eld.

In a similar manner, all the great Officers of State, and the Court dignitaries, bore the badges of their offices in addition to their family arms, and numerous as were these functionaries, there could be no confusion between their achievements, so appropriate were their devices to their offices.

Such were the Court regulations, and so long as Louis XIV. reigned they were, no doubt, strictly enforced; but later on, under the Regence and Louis XV., a general laxity prevailed, indicative of the coming storm.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOOK-PLATE OF L. J. M. DE BOURBON, ADMIRAL OF FRANCE.]

Mention is frequently found on old book-plates of various offices held under _Parlement_. In France, before the Revolution, there were twelve _Parlements_, namely, those of Paris, Toulouse, Gren.o.ble, Bordeaux, Dijon, Rouen, Aix, Rennes, Pau, Metz, Douay, and Besancon, besides some local councils for the colonies.

These _Parlements_ were simply local Courts of Justice, ent.i.tled to deal both with civil and criminal cases, and their functions in no way resembled those of the British Houses of Parliament.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOOK-PLATE OF M. HURSON.]

The officers connected with these Courts were very numerous, and those of the higher grades were ent.i.tled to carry certain distinctive badges with their arms, and head-dresses denoting their rank.

In ex-libris printed before the Revolution it is not unusual to find the collars and insignia of the several orders of French knighthood, the princ.i.p.al of which were the order of Saint Denis, inst.i.tuted in 1267; of Saint Michel, inst.i.tuted by Louis XI. at the Chateau d'Amboise, August 1, 1469; of the Saint Esprit (Holy Ghost), inst.i.tuted in 1578; of Notre Dame du Mont Carmel, inst.i.tuted in 1607; and of Saint Louis, inst.i.tuted in 1693. The chevaliers de Saint Michel wore a collar from which was pendent a medal, representing the archangel overthrowing the dragon; the collar of the Saint Esprit was formed of alternate _fleurs-de-lis_ and the letter H interlaced, from which depended either a dove or a cross, according to the rank of the bearer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOOK-PLATE OF THE COMTE DE MONDESIR.]

The Knights of the Royal and Military order of Saint Louis carried a star with eight points, on which was the motto of the order: _Bellicae virtutis praemium_.

There was also a very ancient order, that of St. Lazare de Jerusalem, which was united by Henri IV. with that of Notre Dame du Mont Carmel.

Although the order of the Toison d'Or (Golden Fleece) was founded by a French prince, Philippe, Duke of Burgundy, in 1429, it pa.s.sed into the hands of the House of Austria, and thence again into the possession of the kings of Spain, who became the sovereigns of the order.

Owing, no doubt, to the close family relations existing between the royal houses of France and Spain, the order of the Golden Fleece was conferred upon many of the French n.o.bles (by permission of their king), and the collar, with the well-known badge of the pendent lamb, is to be found on many French achievements. The motto of the order is _Pretium non vile laborum_.

Of all these orders the most important were the Saint Michel, the Saint Esprit, and the Saint Louis, which were specially distinguished as ”les Ordres du Roi” (the Orders of the King), he being their Chief and Grand Master. Chevaliers of the order of the Saint Esprit were always first admitted into the order of Saint Michel, so that the collars of these two orders are generally found together. The order of Saint Louis having been founded by Louis XIV. exclusively for the reward of military and naval services, is occasionally met with apart from the two other orders of the king. There was also an order, that of the Bee, intended for ladies only, which was founded in 1703.

Most of the above orders ceased to exist during the Revolution. That of the Saint Esprit was revived at the Restoration, but the last installation took place under Charles X., at the Tuileries, on May 31, 1830, and the latest surviving owner of the Order was the late Duc de Nemours; whilst that of Saint Louis, a distinctly Bourbon decoration, is probably still kept alive by the few remaining adherents of that luckless family.

In 1802 Napoleon, then First Consul, inst.i.tuted the famous order of the Legion of Honour, for the reward of merit either in the army, navy, or in civil life. The order was confirmed by Louis XVIII. in 1815, and its rules and const.i.tution were modified in 1816 and in 1851. M. Ambroise Thomas, on whom the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour was recently bestowed, is one of six civilians who at present hold that order.

Meissioner is the only artist who has ever held this distinction. The number of Grand Crosses is limited to eighty, but for a long time past the number actually holding the decoration has varied between forty and fifty. When the Legion of Honour was created in 1802 by General Bonaparte, the holders of the Grand Cordon (now Grand Cross) were ent.i.tled to draw 800 a year; at the Restoration this amount was reduced by one-half. Nowadays the members of the Legion of Honour receive the following annuities: Knights, 10; Officers, 20; Commanders, 40; Grand Officers, 80; and Grand Crosses, 120. Decorations conferred on civilians do not carry with them any pension. Practically this is now the only order of knighthood existing in France, yet the number of men who are _decore_ is remarkable. They can scarcely be all chevaliers de la Legion d'Honneur, but the French have a pa.s.sion for t.i.tles and orders, a craving for _le galon_, which, though somewhat incompatible with the republican form of government they have adopted, must be gratified.

This desire to raise oneself a rung or two on the social ladder, to which even sensible bibliophiles appear to have succ.u.mbed, is no new thing. It exists to-day, and has existed for centuries. Penalties, however severe, seem to have been unavailing, and even ridicule was found powerless to check this silly vanity.

A lawyer of Dijon, named Bernard, was ordered to erase from the tomb of his wife the girdle of n.o.bility he had had carved around her epitaph.

Others who carried the full-faced open helmets, proper only for emperors, kings, and sovereign princes, on their fantastic achievements, were compelled to adopt the closed helmet in profile proper for a simple gentleman.

Owners of a.s.sumed t.i.tles and of manufactured coats-of-arms were greatly alarmed a few years ago by the terribly sarcastic writings of an individual who styled himself the ghost of an ancient herald, _Le Toison d'Or_.[2]

In a series of letters published in ”Le Voltaire” he exposed the faulty and ignorant system of heraldry in vogue, and the deceptive a.s.sumptions of t.i.tles, coronets, and armorial bearings in modern French Society.

Indeed, he remarked, to judge by appearances, one might imagine that the Revolution had destroyed nothing, but that, on the contrary, it had endeavoured to foster and encourage t.i.tles and aristocracy, so rapidly had they increased of late years.

Toison d'Or wished to alter all this, and the salons were greatly disturbed as he went to work chipping off t.i.tles and prefixes of n.o.bility right and left. But all to no purpose, except indeed to cast doubts upon all French heraldry since the downfall of the Bourbons.

A t.i.tle in France costs nothing, and deceives no one who has the slightest knowledge of family history and genealogy.

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