The introduction states that the author, the Reverend Father Claude François Menestrier, was born in Lyons in 1631, and had been for many years a member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). He wrote many other learned treatises on heraldry.
For the tinctures the French use the same terms as ourselves, except that for green they employ sinople, because vert, properly pronounced, is not easily to be distinguished from the fur vair. This is a sensible distinction, as is also their expression, contre hermine, to describe what British heralds call ermines, in contradistinction to ermine, a difference so little marked in our case as easily to pass unnoticed and give rise to errors.
The conventional system above mentioned of engraving the tinctures is also the same in France as in Great Britain, and these devices may be easily fixed on the mind of the merest novice by a short study of Mr. J. Ashby-Sterry’s entertaining (proposed) work on “Heraldry made Easy:”
“If Argent, my friend, you would wish to attain,
You’ll do it by leaving your paper quite plain.
If metal more tempting you wish to seek for,
Deck paper with dots, it will represent Or.
Perpendicular lines, by armorial rules,
Convey to the herald the notion of Gules.
But lines horizontal and perfectly true
Mean Azure, best known to the vulgar as blue.
For Vert take your pencil,—I beg you’ll attend,—
Draw parallel lines to the course of the bend.
The sinister bend you must follow, I’m sure,
To give to the eye the idea of Purpure.
Lines crossing each other and forming a plaid
Will simulate Sable, so sombre and sad.
For Tenne your pencil should cunningly blend
The lines of the fess and the sinister bend.
Lines crossing each other and forming a net,
Will signify Sanguine, you must not forget!”
As most of the principal heraldic devices used on British arms were adopted when Norman French was our courtly language, and are described in that tongue, it does not require much study to enable anyone who can decipher a British coat-of-arms to do the same with an ordinary French shield, or even to understand the written description of one.
Yet coming to more advanced heraldry, dealing with such questions as descents, marriages, arms of assumption, of succession, of concession, and the proper marshalling of arms, the difficulties increase, and many apparent contradictions arise.
Until the downfall of Louis XVI., the aristocracy of France was not only the most ancient and the proudest in Europe, but, speaking generally, possessed higher hereditary privileges and greater power than the nobility of any other civilized nation in the world.
One of their most cherished rights was that of bearing coat armour, but little by little a rich middle class sprung up (the despised bourgeoisie), which misappropriated coronets and coats-of-arms, and shortly before the outbreak of the Revolution, heraldry in France was in a most confused and chaotic condition.
As to the origin of French heraldry, little is known with any certainty. That tournaments were first held in Germany about 938 is generally admitted. At these the fundamental rules of all heraldry must, no doubt, have been formulated, whence they gradually passed into France, through the north-eastern provinces. Then followed the Crusades, which gave a great impetus to the science of heraldry, as is shown by the vast number of crosses in early arms; the crescents and stars, which were copied from the captured standards of the Saracens; and the fabulous monsters of the East, which became the heraldic devices of many noble families descended from ancient warriors who fought in Palestine. Louis VII. (Louis le Jeune), who superintended all the arrangements for the coronation of his son, Philip Augustus, was the first to employ the Fleur-de-Lys as the royal badge of France, which he caused to be emblazoned on all the ornaments and utensils employed in the coronation ceremony. He was also the first king who employed that badge on his seal.[1] This was before 1180.
Henceforward heraldry became generally popular, and many works were written to define the rules of chivalry, each one more elaborate than the preceding. King John of France devoted much attention to heraldry, as did several of his successors, and then the historians Froissart, Monstrelet, and Olivier de la Marche introduced it into their chronicles. Indeed, there is scarcely one early French romance which does not contain the full blazon of the imaginary arms conferred upon its fabulous personages.