Considering the importance of the Battle of Nancy in the eyes of Lorrainers, the historical value of the badge worn by their victorious ancestors at that famous fight is easily understood. That badge was a double traverse cross. We have Duke Rene II's own word for it. In the account of operation and conduct of the Battle of Nancy, dictated by the Duke himself to his secretary, Joannes Lud, we read: "And I had on my harness a robe of gold cloth, and the armour of my horse was also covered with gold cloth trappings and on the said robe and trappings were three white double traverse crosses."
The Burgundian badge was the St. Andrew Cross. To differentiate his men from their opponents, Rene II naturally thought of the conspicuously distinct double-traverse cross his grandfather Rene I had brought over from Anjou and made so much of.
In another account of the battle, to be found in the Chronicle of Lorraine, written at very nearly the same time, the following passage occurs relating to the period of the fight when Campo Basso and his mercenaries went over from the Burgundian to the Lorraine side; "They all tore off their St. Andrew crosses and put on the Jerusalem one, which Duke Rene was wearing."
The Jerusalem Cross obviously is a misnomer, as proven by the context, the very next sentence of which reads: "And many of the Nancians, sallying from their city to take part in the pillage of the Bold One's Camp, were in great danger of being slaughtered by the Swiss and by their own countrymen because they had not the double traverse cross on them." Again in several other passages the cross is specifically described as a double traverse cross.
January 5, 1477, was the birthday of the Cross of Lorraine. From that day, ceasing to be merely reminiscent of Anjou, the double traverse cross became the Lorraine National Emblem.
Since the war in 1870-71, which resulted in the annexation of part of Lorraine to Germany, a significant use has been made of the old cross. Shortly after the signature of the Treaty of Frankfurt, a meeting of the inhabitants of Metz was held on Sion Hill. As a result of the meeting a marble monument was erected, having carved on it a broken Lorraine Cross. An inscription in local dialect was added, reading "C'name po tojo" ("'Twill not be forever"). The world war ended in the realization of this prophecy.
So the soldiers of the Seventy-Ninth Division can look at the insignia they have been privileged to wear and think of the memories associated with it.