It would be a very great pleasure for me to meet you personally so that we can have a long conversation on this rarefied subject. Please let me know when you are next in Paris, I would be delighted to give you lunch at the Jockey Club and introduce you to a few people, who would increase your vast knowledge on the subject of French titles. If we may be of any further service to you please do not hesitate to let me know. Titles have no other legal existence. As such, they have nothing to do with land, since family names have nothing to do with land.
Coats of arms have no official registry in France.
The Conseil Fran ais d'H raldique is, I believe, a private venture. Titles are registered with a special commission at the Ministry of Justice, which does not deal at all with coats of arms. Coats of arms are also accessories of the family name, and have nothing to do juridically with titles or nobility. While I would not dare to suggest that there is anything in the least dodgy about Burke's Peerage venture, it does seem rather reminiscent of a gone-by epoch when 'nobiliary consultants' were plying their trade discreetly by word of mouth or indiscreetly in specialised magazines on both sides of the Atlantic as well as on the Continent. Dr. Pangloss has covered the subject quite well in a series of articles on this site.