During the first and second Empire the Imperial Standard was still the tricolor, but it bore in the centre of the white strip the eagle; and all three strips were richly diapered over with the golden bees of the Napoleons. The national flag was the tricolor pure and simple, both for the Imperial and the Commercial Navy. As the flags of the army were borne on staffs surmounted by a golden eagle, the term "eagle" was often applied to these colours.[[71]]
On the outbreak of the second Republic in 1848, the people immediately on its proclamation demanded the adoption of the ill-omened red flag. Lamartine, the leading member of the provisional Government, closed an impassioned address with the words: "Citizens, I will reject even to death this banner of blood, and you should repudiate it still more than myself, for this red flag you offer us has only made the circuit of the Champs de Mars bathed in the blood of the people, while the tricolor has made the circuit of the world, with the name, the glory, and the liberty of your country." Louis Blanc and other members of the Government were in favour of the red flag, and at last a compromise was effected and the tricolor was accepted with the addition of a large red rosette. Louis Blanc, not unreasonably, as a Republican, pointed out that Lafayette had in 1789 associated the white of the Bourbon flag with the red and blue of the arms of the City, and that the tricolor flag was therefore the result of a compromise between the king and the people, but that in 1848 the king having abdicated, and monarchy done away with, there was no reason why any suggestion of the kingly power should continue. Doubtless the suppression of the flag of the barricades, the symbol of civil strife,
of anarchy and bloodshed, and the retaining of the tricolor was the wiser and more patriotic course, though it required no mean amount of courage and strong personal influence to effect the change.
The Imperial Eagle, so long a symbol of victory, has now in these Republican days[[72]] disappeared from the national colours. The flag of the French army is now surmounted by a wreath of laurel traversed by a golden dart with the letters R.F. and the regimental number, while on one face of the flag itself is, in the middle, the inscription "Republique Française, Honneur et Patrie," each corner being occupied by a golden wreath enclosing the number of the regiment. The name of the regiment and its "honours" occupy the other side.
The pendant of the French man-of-war is simply, Fig. [186], the tricolor elongated. The Admiral flies a swallow-tailed tricolor, while the Rear-Admiral and the Vice-Admiral have flags of the ordinary shape, like Fig. [191], except that the former officer has two white stars on the blue strip near the top of it, and the latter three. Maritime prefects have the three white stars on the blue plus two crossed anchors in blue in the centre of the white strip. The Governor of a French colony has such a special and distinctive flag as Fig. [96] would be if, instead of the Union canton on the blue, we placed in similar place the tricolor. There are naturally a great many other official flags, but the requirements of our space forbid our going into any further description of them.
The war and mercantile flags of Spain have undergone many changes, and their early history is very difficult to unravel; but on May 28th, 1785, the flags were adopted that have continued in use ever since. Fig. [192] is the flag of the Spanish Navy; it consists, as will be seen, of three stripes—a central yellow one, and a red one, somewhat narrower, above and below. The original proportion was that the yellow should be equal in width to the two red ones combined. This central stripe is charged, near the hoist, with an escutcheon containing the arms of Castile and Leon, and surmounted by the royal crown. The mercantile flag, Fig. [193], is also red and yellow. The yellow stripe in the centre is without the escutcheon, and in width it should be equal to one-third of the entire depth of the flag, the remaining thirds above and below it being divided into two equal strips, the one red and the other yellow. This simple striping of the two colours was doubtless
suggested by the arms of Arragon, the vertical red and yellow bars[[73]] of which may be seen also in the Spanish Royal Standard, Fig. [194]. Spain, like Italy, has grown into one monarchy by the aggregation of minor States. In the year 1031 we have the Union of Navarre and Castile; in 1037 we find Leon and Asturias joining this same growing kingdom, and in the year 1474 Ferdinand II. of Arragon married Isabella of Castile, and thus united nearly the whole of the Christian part of Spain into one monarchy. In 1492 this same prince added to his dominions Moorish Spain by the conquest of Granada.
Legend hath it that in the year 873 the Carlovingian Prince Charles the Bold honoured Geoffrey, Count of Barcelona, by dipping his four fingers in the blood from the Count's wounds after a battle in which they were allied, and drawing them down the Count's golden shield, and that these ruddy bars were then and there incorporated in the blazon. Barcelona was shortly afterwards merged into the kingdom of Arragon, and its arms were adopted as those of that kingdom. Its four upright strips of red, the marks of the royal fingers, are just beyond the upper shield in Fig. [194].
The pendant of the Spanish Navy bears at its broad end a golden space in which the arms and crown, as in Fig. [192], are placed; the rest of the streamer is a broad strip of yellow, bordered, as in Fig. [192], by two slightly narrower strips of red.
The Royal Standard of Spain, Fig. [194], is of very elaborate character, and many of its bearings are as inappropriate to the historic facts of the present day as the retention in the arms of Great Britain of the French fleurs-de-lys centuries after all claim to its sovereignty had been lost. In the upper left hand part of the flag we find quartered the lion of Leon and the castle of Castile.[[74]] At the point we have marked "C" are the arms of Arragon. "D" is the device of Sicily. The red and white stripes at "E" are the arms of Austria; we have already encountered these in Fig. [213]. The flag of ancient Burgundy, oblique stripes of yellow and blue within a red border, is placed at "F." The black lion on the golden ground at "G" is the heraldic bearing of Flanders, while the red eagle "H" is the device of Antwerp. At "I" we have the