The mountain Democrat. [volume] (Placerville, El Dorado County, Calif.) 1863-1943, 1865-03-18

ivan had no sooner ascertained this dis
tinctiOn between the Muscovite, and Ger-
: 4: S4S, EAA<LfA fAAused tho designers
and engravers Of his coins to be hanged.
The Muscovite eagle remained with fold
ed wings, but in its fight it has never.
theless equaled, and even distanced, the
eagle Of the GermanA
I he French emblem was not always
the victorious eagle. Following custom
preserved for some centuries among most
modern nations, the French kings adopted
at first the religious banner of the saint in
whose intercession they had the greatest
con63rz.E, and this was st. Martin, one
of the foremost apostles of the Gauls, and
the reputed patron Of the infant French
monarchy. The French kings according.
~ assumed his cope for their banner
Its color was blue, a color which, accord
ing to the rites of the Roman Church, was
specially reserved for the saints. Hence
blue became the national color Of France
under her early kings, until the establish.
ment of the Carlovingian dynasty render.
ed necessary a change in the natinal stan
dard and its color.
For the cope of St. Martin, whose color
was nevertheless preserved on the f'Oyal
blazon, was substituted the banner of st.
Denis, the patron chosen by the devotion
OF the new kings. This Carlovingian
standard, therefore, was that which be-
came so celebrated in French history as
the Ori1amme. II was made of red silk,
without ornament Of gold or silver, and
thus red-which the Roman Church con.
secrated to her martyrs-became the COL
or of the kings Of France. They bore it
on their cOat-of-arms during the Crusades,
and remained faithful to it to the end OF
the fourteenth century. Du Guesclin bore
the red cross in 1880 against the white
cross Of the English in Poitou.
But when the Orihamme had ceased to
appear at the head of our armies after
the defeat Of Agincourt; when the youth
ful son of the victorious "lIarry Of Mon
mouth" had become master of Paris and
the Abbey Of St. Denis; when Henry vi.
had been crowned king of France, and
assumed the banner of st. Louis, the
French resigned the hue which, to them,
had become the color Of their ancestral
foes. Red thenceforward disappeared
from their stan ards; they assumed, Gu
rious!yenOugh, the white which their en-.
emleS abandoned; and the red cross was
borne by gallant English hearts over the
farthest seas.
A French essayist remarks, that it was
probably the devotion Of Charles VII.
and his son, Louis XI., to the Virgin,
which induced them to select this color,
and preserve it in the French banners as
an immaculate symbol Of her purity, and
guarantee Of her protection. 1t must,
how ever, he remembered that white was
not always the exclusive color of the
Bourbons. In the fierce religious wars
Of the Huguenots, Charles IX. and Henry
ILL., gave to their soldiers banners of red,
while the hero of tue snow white plume
Henry Of fought under the
white standard. The three national COL
orS, adopted at different periods Of French
history, were at last blended into the tri
color by the leaders of the great Revolu-
tion; but they had already been used by
some Of the French sovereigns in their
flags and livcries. Francis l., Henry H.,
Francis H., and Henry ILL.,, chose them
for the parti colored costumes Of their
pages. In the days Of uenri-quatre, they
we're blended in the uniform of the hal
berdiers, and in the attire of the royal va
let's dc pied. When, towards the close of
his reign, Holland accomplished her inde
pcndence, she solicited of the great mon
arch permission 10 take to herself the
French culors; he consented; and the flag
which he dispatched, as a proof of his
goodwill, to the Stakeholder at Ampstcr-
dam, was o tri.color; since which time
Holland has carried no other.
At the beginning Of the eighteenth cen
tury, nearly hundred years before the
outbreak of the Revolution, the French
soldiers bore for brief period the three
cOlors; this was at the epoch Of the Tri-
pie Alliance between the kings of France
and Spain and the clector of Bavaria
When the three armies were combined, it
was thought best to give their soldiers a
cockade whose blended colors should in
dicate the union of the three countries.
1t was thus that the white of France, the
red of Spain. and the blue of Bavaria
were united in the War of the Succession
which humbled the pride OF Louis XIV.
on the memorable fields of Blenheim,
Families, Oudenarde, and MalpIaquet.
However. it is not to these crcum.
stances. nor to any desire to embematize
the different eras Of French history, that
the tri-color of the Revolution owes its
origin. In 1889, the green flag, popular
ized by Camille Dtsmoulins at the Ralais
Royal, fell into disrepute, because green
was the color of the liveries of the Count
d'Artois, one of the most unpopular Of
the Bourbon princes. The people looked
around for other insignia, and appropria
ted the two colors Of the city of Paris, red
and blue, already celebrated in more than
one popular emeute. The new popular
standard soon united with these the
white, which had been assumed by the
National Guard Of Paris, still faithful to
royalty and its emblcms. 1t was some
months after the capture of the Bastile
that the tri color was detinitively adopted.
The national convention formally ap-
proved the selection of the three colors,
and consecrated il even, in its sitting of
the "27th Pluviose, in the year g" by
the following decree: "The flag, as well
as the national standard, shall be CON-
posed of the three national colors, dis
tributed in three equal bands, so that the
blue shall be next 10 the flagstaff, the
white in the middle, and the red floating
in the air"
Before quitting the subject Of the flags
of France, few words respecting the
Orifamme and the Scarfs Qes escharpes).
- 1t vas at first the Counts de Vexin,
who, as chief vasse!s of the Abbey of st.
Denis, had the sole right of removing
from the abbatial altar, and displaying at
the head of their retainers, the or1amme,
the banner of the monks. When Louis
vi. became Count de Vexin. be made use
of the clai N this title gave him nnOn the