Thus besants are said to indicate the sovereign right to coin money; and the six besants borne by the Dukes of Aquitaine are cited in support of this view. Billets are said to signify castles; tourteaux, bread of munition; fusees, patience; the bordure, protection. Sometimes the minor charges are associated with distinct family traditions, as in the case of the chabots, or bull-heads, borne by the noble House of that name, in commemoration of a siege when the defenders were reduced to support life on that insignificant fish. The thirteen crutch-shaped pieces which accompany the bend and cottices of the arms of Champagne are said to be intended to signify the 13 châtelenies into which that ancient county was divided. But charges of this kind usually originate within historic dates, and have little resemblance to the simple and noble divisions and ordinaries of the most ancient coats. The chain was imposed on the gules scutcheon of D'Albret in 1212, and the coat thus charged was borne by Henri the Fourth in a separate shield, under the crown of France, side by side with the scutcheon of the lilies, as King of France and Navarre, before the union of the kingdoms. It is probably more accurate to regard the ancient ordinaries as originally means for the regulation of the bearing of tinctures, and as the first step in complexity of armorial bearings from the simple division of the

.coat.

The imports of the several heraldic metals and tinctures are described by the ancient French writers. Much is to be found on this subject in "Le Palais de L'Honneur" of the Père Anselme. The association of the heraldic colours with the planets, to such a degree that the names of the planets were at times used, in blazoning the

arms of sovereign princes, to denote the tinctures, gives weight to the attribution in question. The chief symbolisations of the tinctures were as follows:

Or, gold, in the language of heraldry, Sol, the sun, in the coats of princes, topaz in those of great nobles, which is represented graphically by dots over the surface of the field, symbolised faith, justice, charity, honesty, prosperity, constancy, or wealth.

Argent, silver; Luna, the moon, on royal coats; pearl, as a gem; a white field; signifies purity, hope, truth, conscience, beauty, gentility, frankness, and candour.

Azure, blue, the colour of the planet Jupiter, and of the gem sapphire, signifies chastity, loyalty, fidelity, and good repute. It is denoted by the engraver by parallel horizontal lines.

Gules, red, the colour of the planet Mars, and of ruby among gems, signifies love, valour, hardihood, courage, and generosity. It is denoted by vertical lines.

Sable, black, the colour of Saturn among planets, and of diamond among gems, denotes prudence, wisdom, and constancy in adversity and in sorrow. It is denoted by vertical, crossed by horizontal, lines.

Vert or synople, green, the colour of the planet Venus, and of the emerald, is held to denote courtesy, civility, love, joy, and abundance. It is denoted by diagonal lines drawn from left above to right below.

Purpure or purple, a rare and probably a lately introduced heraldic colour, has no planetary equivalent. It is held to denote devotion, temperance, liberality, and (as the colour of the imperial robe) sovereign authority. It is denoted by diagonal lines, in the opposite direction to those signifying vert.

Ermine denotes purity, chastity, and immaculate honour. The ermine shield, plein, or uncharged, with the motto, "Malo mori quam foedari," was assumed by Jean V., dit le Vaillant, Duc de Bretagne, in 1255.

The arms of the temporal peers of France are good examples of early heraldry. They were as follows:

The Duke of Burgundy, which (before the legacy of the lordship of the Dauphin of Auvergne to the King of France gave the title of that noble to the heir of the throne) was the first title borne by a French subject, bore bendy of six pieces, azure and or. This very ancient coat is still worn, by descent, among the quarterings of the Emperor of Austria, and of the King of the Two Sicilies. The Dukes of Burgundy of the second line, originating in Philippe le Hardi, son of Charles V., King of France, bore the lilies of France within a bordure compony (or composed of alternate squares) of argent and gules.

The Duke of Normandy bore two lions, or, on a field gules. In ancient heraldry the posture of the animal borne was not distinguished. William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, neither changed nor augmented his arms on the conquest of England; and the arms of Normandy alone were borne by the Kings of England and Dukes of Normandy down to the time of Henry II., who is said to have added the third lion on his marriage with Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, in virtue of her territorial rights. Three lions have since been borne by the successive English sovereigns; and have been quartered with the arms of Scotland, of Ireland, of France, in virtue of the claims long urged to the French succession, and, under the Kings of the House of Guelph, with those of

The Duke of Aquitaine bore azure under a chief or, six besants, argent. In English heraldry the besants are termed plates. The arms of Aquitaine do not appear to have been assumed by the kings. of either France or England on their successive marriages with the same Duchess Eleanor, nor are they borne in subsequent heraldry. The House of Reignier, which was allied to the Dukes of Aquitaine, bears the besants without the chief.

The Count of Toulouse bore oneof the most curiously conventionalised forms of cross known to the herald. His arms are described as gules à la croix pattée, vuidée, or, pommettée argent. The bearing, of which we give a cut, was the skeleton or outline of a curvilinear cross, with three silver besants, or apples, on the end of each limb. These were said to represent the twelve apostles. That the Cross of Toulouse was older than the first crusade appears from the fact that the Papal Legate, Adhemar Viscount de Lombes, Bishop of Puy, bore parti, France and Toulouse.

The Count of Flanders bore Or, a lion sable; a bearing which has descended to the Imperial House of Austria, and to the Royal House of the two Sicilies.

The Count of Champagne bore

azure, a bend or, accompanied by two pairs of cottices, charged with thirteen pieces potencées, argent; the symbols, as before said, of the thirteen châtellenies of the county. It should be remarked that Stephen de Champagne Blois, King of England, appears to have borne as arms of his own selection three centaurs, which are even now to be found on the tiles of the Chapter House of Westminster, instead of those of either his maternal ancestor, the Duke of Normandy and King of England, those of Champagne, or those of Boulogne.

VIII.

One striking peculiarity of French heraldry is the simplicity of the bearings, coupled with the great antiquity of their origin. In the heraldry of all countries, when a family becomes extinct in the male line, leaving a daughter as heiress, the husband of such an heiress bears the arms of her House in a small shield, called a scutcheon of pretence, in the middle of his own coat of arms. The children of such a marriage quarter the arms of both parents; unless, as sometimes happens, it be arranged

in the settlement that the first child shall carry on the representation of one House, and the second that of another. In the course of 600 or 800 years, some Houses, by continually marrying heiresses, have accumulated quarterings. The most famous, if not absolutely the most complicated, coat of arms thus produced, is that of the Emperor of Austria. So remarkable was the fortune of that House in this respect that it is commemorated by the old line,

"Stent alii gladio, tu, felix Austria, nube."

The Emperor Francis Joseph bears sixty-six quarterings on his scutcheon, which is divided into

nine grand quarters, six of which bear scutcheons of pretence. The centre quarter contains the three coats of Hapsburg, Austria, and Lorraine. A French prince would have borne the arms of Austria alone, viz., gules, a fess argent.

In French heraldry the rule has prevailed from the earliest times that the head of the House bore on his scutcheon the original arms of his line alone, without charges or quarterings. The appearance of these on the shield denoted a younger son. In England a special charge, or difference, is attributed to each son; the first bearing what is called a label on his paternal coat, the second a crescent, and so on for as many as nine sons. In France the distinctions of the younger sons, if they established lineages of their own, were more arbitrary. Labels of three, four, or five points were borne; bordures were introduced; or the quartering of maternal arms was adopted. What was called the pennon, indeed, was also carried by the great families, and contained all the quarterings to which they were entitled. But the scutcheon, for the most part unaccompanied as before said, was simple, and by either crest, supporters, or motto; which accompaniments, since the 14th century, have been always borne by English peers. The French nobles sometimes adopted a cri, or war cry, which was borne over, and not under, the arms. Sometimes these cris are of great antiquity and significance, as in the case of the proud invocation of the De Montmorenci. Sometimes several nobles had the same cri, indicating the crusading chief under whom they sailed to Palestine. Thus some of the oldest nobles in Languedoc had the common cri "Tolose," as the companions of the Count of Toulouse to the Holy Land. Godefridus mihi dedit

is a crusading cri belonging to the family of Thomas. Fert, fert, fert, is the cri of the House of Savoy, from the time of Count Amadeus, the defender of Rhodes. It is said to indicate the words Fortitudo ejus Rhodum tenuit. The Dukes of Guise, younger members of the House of Lorraine, bore a shield of eight quarters, with Lorraine on a scutcheon of pretence. The Duke de Merceur, another cadet of this great house, bore the same arms with a blue label over all. The Duke de Mayenne, yet another cadet of the same house, quartered the nine bearings of Guise with the arms of Bretagne, Este, and France. The Duke of Chevrouse, still a younger branch, quartered Lorraine as before with a piece containing six minor quarters, Albret in the first and fifth, La Mark in the second and sixth, and Burgundy in the third and fourth.

IX.

Twenty-five regal and royal lines descended from Hugh Capet, and may be traced from father to son through the course of the history of France. The more ancient the establishment of each such line, where a representative yet exists, the more distant is the affinity from the actual head of the House of France. The direct line of the Capetian kings came down from lance to lance through 14 descents to the infant Jean I.; the male line ending, as has been the case with so many royal lines, with the succession of three brothers to the throne.

Under the Salic law, then for the first time enforced in the House of Capet, the kingdom of France, on the death of Charles IV. without a son, devolved on Philip, Count of Valois, son of Charles, Count of Valois, third son of King Philip III. But the king

dom of Navarre, which had been assumed by Philip IV. of France, in right of his wife Jeanne, daughter and heiress of Henri le Gros, King of Navarre, descended, according to the ordinary rule of heritage, to Jeanne, daughter of King Philip V. She married the Comte d'Evreux, a descendant of King Philip III., and the kingdom of Navarre, falling to the spindle successively in the houses of Evreux, Foix, and Albret, descended to Anthony of Bourbon, under the crown of whose son it was again united to the kingdom of France. 'By the which marriage" as Shakespeare remarks of the earlier marriage of King Philip II.,

66

The line of Charles the Great
Was re-united to the crown of
France.

The lines that branched from the original stem of the house of Capet were as follows:

(1) The line of Robert of France, Duke of Burgundy, son of King Robert the Pious, which endured for ten male descents, after which the Duchy was re-united to the crown in 1361. The arms of Burgundy were before described.

(2) The line of Henri of France, King of Portugal, grandson of King Robert the Pious, which endured through thirteen male descents to the year 1580.

(3) The line of Fleury of France, son of King Philip I. and of Bertrade of Anjou. Fleury married the heiress of Nangis, and the heritage fell to the spindle through the houses of Venisy, Britaut, Montmorenci, Veres, and Brichanteau, to Louis Reignier, Marquis of Guerchy and of Nangis, in 1744.

(4) The line of Robert of France, Comte de Dreux, son of King Louis VI., which lasted for seven male descents. Pierre de Dreux, grandson of Robert, married Alix de Thouars, heiress of Bretagne. The dukedom of Bretagne was created

in 1297, in the person of Jean II., who married Beatrix of England, daughter of King Henry III., and was temporarily re-united to the Crown of France by the marriage of Anne, heiress of Duke Francis II., with Charles VIII., and on his death with Louis XII.; and permanently on the marriage of Claude of France, Duchess of Bretagne, with King Francis I.

(5) The line of Pierre of France, brother of Robert, who married the heiress of Courtenay. The line endured for five male descents, giving two emperors to Constantinople. The heiress. the Empress Catherine, married Charles, Comte de Valois. The arms of Courtenay are, or, three tourteaux; or roundels gules.

(6) The line of Robert of France, Comte D'Artois, son of King Louis VIII., endured for seven male descents. The heritage passed through Catherine, daughter of Robert III., to the house of Ponthieu, and thence to those of Harcourt, Brouilly, and Reignier. The arms of Artois were those of France, charged with a label of three points gules, each point charged with three castles, or.

(7) The line of Charles of France, Count of Anjou, brother of the last, King of Sicily, endured for five male descents, and attained the throne of Hungary by the marriage of Charles II. with Mary of Hungary. The crown fell to the spindle, in the person of Mary, Queen of Hungary, in the fifth descent. The parallel line of the Kings of Naples ended in the person of Jeanne I., Queen of Naples, and wife of Andrew, King of Hungary; and that crown was bequeathed by that princess to Louis of Anjou, founder of the third House of that name, second son of John, King of France. The arms of Charles, Comte D'Anjou, were France, with a bordure gules.

(8) The line of Robert of France, Comte de Clermont, son of St. Louis, who married the heiress of Bourbon, and is represented, in the nineteenth generation, by Henri of France, fifth of the name, now called the Comte de Chambord. Arms, France, oppressed with a bend gules, until the time of Henri IV., King of France, when the bend was removed.

The

(9) The line of Charles of France, Comte de Valois, son of King Philip III., which in the second descent was called to the throne. arms of Valois were those of France, within a bordure gules, being the same as those previously borne by Charles, Comte D'Anjou.

(10) The line of Jeanne of France, Queen of Navarre, daughter of King Louis X., which united the following line.

(11) The line of Louis of France, Comte d'Evreux, brother of Charles of Valois, which, as before mentioned, obtained the kingdom of Navarre. Arms, France, within a bordure compony, argent and gules.

(12) The line of Charles, Comte d'Alençon, son of Charles de Valois, the heritage of which fell to the House of Bourbon; the male line ending in 1525. Arms, France, with a bordure gules, charged with 8 besants, or.

The representation of the male line of St. Louis, and the inheritance of the crown of France fell, on the death of Charles IV., as before mentioned, to (13) Philip VI., grandson of King Philip III. The crown fell from lance to lance for six descents, which ended in the person of Charles VIII., in 1498. The next male heir of the line was Louis XII., (14) son of Charles, and grandson of Louis, Duke of Orleans, son of King Charles V. Louis XII., leaving at his death