trunk is soon drawn from the ground, and leaves a very spacious opening, and the adjoining pales also are at the same time loosened, because thick branches are too short to be interwoven each with the other. "But it is otherwise in the method of the Romans. Among them the branches are so twisted together that it is not easy to distinguish what branches belong to the stems in the several pales, or what stems to the branches. Add to this, that the texture of them is so close as to allow no room for a hand to pass, and that the points also of all the branches are very carefully sharpened. And even when it is possible to lay hold on any part, it is still extremely difficult to draw out any of the pales, not only because they are very firmly fixed in the ground, but because the force also which is applied to any single branch must at the same time draw along many other branches which are inseparably twisted with it. Nor is it scarcely ever practicable for two or three men to lay hold on the same pale together; and if a single pale, or if two, by the efforts of continual shaking, should at last be removed from their place, the opening that is made is so small that it is scarcely to be discerned. As these pales, then, have in three respects, a very great advantage over the others,-in being found almost in any place, in being carried with ease, and in forming, when they are used, a rampart the most stable and secure, it is manifest, at least in my judgment, that there is not any part of the Roman discipline which so well deserves to be approved and imitated." I find it is doubted whether the Roman altars, etc., said to come from Birrenswark really were found there; but, if I remember right, they are engraved by Alexander Gordon as far back as 1727. THE FLEUR-DE-LIS OF THE ANCIENT FRENCH MONARCHY.1 BY J. TH. DE RAADT, OF BRUSSELS. (Read 5th Dec. 1894.) FEW archæological questions have been the object of so many studies as that of the fleur-de-lis of the ancient French monarchy. Illustrious men of learning did not object to bring to bear upon this subject their high sagacity. Amongst modern authors who have occupied themselves with it ranks foremost M. Adalbert de Beaumont, whose Recherches sur l'origine du blason et en particulier de la fleur de lys seemed for a moment to terminate the debate victoriously. It was reserved to M. van Malderghem to remove the mist from the truth of the origin and symbolism of this mysterious flower. Without spending time in recurring to often-refuted opinions, the author of this paper limits himself to exposing in a summary way the diverse interpretations brought forward, and passes on to a critical examination of the book of M. de Beaumont, who, in order to explain finally how the flower, considered as the emblem of sovereignty, had passed on from the sceptres of Oriental kings to those of the kings of France, strives, with a zeal worthy of a better fate, to collect from amongst the nations of antiquity all devices that might approach, in shape, to this flower. The filiation established by M. de Beaumont does not rest on a very solid basis. It is, after all, Arabian art which serves him as a link to attach the famous emblem to Egyptian art; but the Egyptian flower-the real name of which he persistently denies-is nothing else but the lotus, the figurative emblem of fertility and of richness, the sacred flower par excellence; whilst the dominating 1 Les Fleurs de lis de l'ancienne monarchie Française, leur origine, leur nature, leur symbolisme. Par Jean van Malderghem, archiviste adjoint de la ville de Bruxelles. Translated into English by Baron Adhemar de Linden. motive of the arabesque, also affecting, like the Egyptian lotus, the shape of the fleur-de-lis, evokes no symbolical idea, and is at most the purely material representation of the flower such as nature has made it, but subjected, as everywhere else, to conventional forms of ornamentation. In fact, being by its nature essentially sensual, and having for its aim a dazzling of the eyes by the richness of its capricious outlines, Arabian art never had the least affinity with the antique art of Egypt, the characteristic of which is the most absolute and expressive symbolism. The sally of Voltaire: "La fleur-de-lis est le résultat d'une fantaisie de peintre", was necessarily bound to strike the mind of his numerous admirers. It has also inspired more than one of those who see in this flower nothing but a decorative motive, a bibelot héraldique, an absolutely artificial figure, which, like the Grand dictionnaire universel of Pierre Larousse (the vehicle of all recent scientific assertions), fails in all resemblance to the lily of our gardens. Reversing all ancient theories and anticipating all objections, M. van Malderghem establishes in an irrefutable way that this ornament quite represented a flower, and that this flower was neither the iris, the flambe, nor the corn-flag, as so many believed, but incontestably the white lily of the garden. Before Louis le Jeune (1137-80), under whose reign armorial bearings took their birth, and who, since the first year of his reign, had stamped on his coinage the muchcontested fleur-de-lis, the kings of France and of England, just as the kings and emperors of Germany, had already caused themselves to be represented on their seals with the insignia of sovereignty. It is a Carlovingian king, Lothair, son of Louis d'Outremer, who in 972 opens the French series with the crown and the sceptre, the latter having at its extremity a flower with three leaves. In Germany, the examples which show the seals of the emperors and of the kings are more ancient still; for those of the remote period of Otto I (936-973) show to us, either the diadem, or the sceptre with the flower. A long series of arguments could be drawn up to prove that, before the adoption of coats-of-arms, and even before the first Crusade (1096), this heraldic flower had also been waving on the sceptre and the crown of other princes of Christianity. For the epoch previous to the creation of the royal type in sigillography, the author is forced to have recourse to works of art, i.e., tombstones, statues, and miniatures specially dedicated to the glorification of kings, for that which seals and coins cannot supply him. Notwithstanding that M. Willemin asserts that the sepulchral effigies of the ancient kings of France have been conscientiously restored after the original monuments, it is permissible to have doubts as to the details. According to the testimony of Montfaucon, the tombs of the Carlovingian kings, such as existed still in his time, were not of such a style as to distinguish the sculptures of the eighth and of the tenth century. The same observation applies to the Merovingian period, with the exception of two tombs which were restored in the eleventh century. None of the tombs in Saint-Denis date, according to the assertion of Baron de Guilhermy, previous to the thirteenth century; and one is ignorant as to the system of decoration of those erected at SaintDenis to the kings who had reigned previous to that epoch. As the precious mine of the royal tombs cannot assist him, M. van Malderghem consults the still extant miniature MSS. of the Carlo vingian times, in the hope that they may throw some light on the question. The first of the two most remarkable collections is the famous Psalter of Charles-le-Chauve, executed for this Prince by Liuthard between A.D. 842 and 869, and now preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. It contains a magnificent miniature, often reproduced in engravings, and which represents this monarch with all the insignia of power. The sceptre terminates in a flower with three petals, of which the one in the middle is of remarkable form. The second MS., entitled Ademari chronicon, dating also from the ninth century, includes a coloured drawing representing Louis-le-Pieux, the father of Charles-le-Chauve, sitting between two personages in the interior of his palace, the front of which is decorated with the same flower. It is to M. Willemin, the author of the Monuments Français inédits, that the honour falls to have been the |