first to find out, that this flower of the sceptre of Charlesle-Chauve, in which Montfaucon thought to recognise a sword, well represents the fleur-de-lis. An unimpeachable testimony, that of a contemporary writer of the two Emperors, who has lived at their court, will confirm this view. The poet Sedulius, of Liège, in his charming poetry entitled De Rosa Liliique Certamine, confronts the rose and the lily disputing with each other the sovereignty of the flowers. Spring, awakened by the noise of the dispute, intervenes, and tries to appease the two rivals: "Dear children", he said, "why this quarrel? You are, you must know, both born from the same soil. How can sisters arouse arrogant disputes? O beautiful rose, quiet yourself, your glory shines on the world; but let the royal lilies reign from the height of the flashing sceptres (Regia sed nitidis dominentur lilia sceptris')...... May the rose be in our gardens the emblem of bashfulness. You, brilliant lily, grow similar in splendour to the visage of Phoebus...... You are, O lily, the ornament of the retinue of long-veiled virgins."

Seals teach us that besides the kings of France, the monarchs of Germany and of England adorned their sceptres with the fleur-de-lis. At the time of the introduction of armorial bearings, the kings of France, the better to mark out their pre-eminence over other kings of the earth, transferred to their escutcheon this flower, which the whole western world recognised as the emblem of sovereign power.

If, on the other side, in Christian iconography, where it represents virginity, this emblem shines in the hand and on the forehead of the purest of virgins, and if it appears to us on the sceptre of the angel Gabriel at the moment when he is announcing to Mary that, by an act of divine grace, she will become the mother of the Saviour of the world, we see it also flourish in the hands of the souzeraine ladies, not as M. van Malderghem spiritually said, to mark out a state which has given place in turn to that of marriage, but to affirm their authority and dominant power. Thus, not only queens and great vassals, but even abbesses in some cases, with haughty pretensions (as, for example, amongst others, those of Quedlinburg), qualified as princesses of the Empire, and who, on

a par with sovereigns, used in their title the proud formula Dei Gratia, represented themselves on their seals as holding a fleur-de-lis in the hand.

It has not been possible for us to allude here to all the arguments accumulated by M. van Malderghem in support of his thesis, and, although the charm which we have experienced in the perusal of his fine work has taken us beyond the space of an ordinary notice, we have given, perhaps, in the opinion of more than one of our readers, too brief a sketch of this remarkable and sensational study, which has the merit of definitively solving, in some thirty pages, the most captivating question which an archaeologist was ever called on to deal with, and on which so many eminent men have expended their researches in vain. In sum, the memoir establishes :—

1, That the fleur-de-lis, considered heraldically, is of occidental and not of oriental origin, and that its use as an ornament of the sceptre goes back at least to the ninth century.

2, That this flower, contrary to generally admitted opinion, incontestably represents the white lily of the gardens.

3, That it symbolises on the occidental sceptres the royal power in general.

4, That it united in the armorial bearings of the ancient French monarchy the idea of sovereign power to that of the particular supremacy which the kings of France enjoyed since the reign of Louis-le-Jeune.

The work of M. van Malderghem is enriched with two plates: the one represents the god "Nile" (after Champollion the Younger), bearing on its head five lotus-flowers, emerging from a coiffure which symbolises the water of the Nile. The second plate shows Charles-le-Chauve as depicted in the miniature of the Psalter in Paris.

The reproduction of the counter-seal of Robert, Archbishop of Reims (1304), represents the mystery of the Annunciation, where the lily which springs up from the vase placed between the Virgin Mary and the celestial messenger is identical with that one which adorns the royal sceptres; that is to say, an heraldic lily.

The author proves by the bibliography given at the end of his study, comprising no less than ninety-six

works, that he has spared no pains to make himself acquainted with all the information useful to his subject; and apparently not fearing the critic of his work, conscientiously even mentions the authors who are opposed to his views. The brochure of M. van Malderghem will not fail to make a great impression in the scientific world, not only in Belgium, but also in foreign countries.

Proceedings of the Association.

WEDNESDAY, 21ST NOVEMBER 1894.

REV. J. CAVE-BROWNE, M.A., IN THE CHAIR.

THE following Associate was duly elected:-F. J. Horniman, Esq., The Museum, Forest Hill.

The following Hon. Correspondent was duly elected :-R. Quick, Esq., Forest Hill.

Thanks were ordered by the Council to be returned to the respective donors of the following presents to the library :

To the Society, for "Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London," session 1893-4; and "Archæologia", vol. liv, pt. 1.

for "Scientific Proceedings of the Royal Dublin Society", October 1892, April and September 1893, vols. iv, v. for "Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland", vol. iv, pts. 2, 3.

for "Journal of the Society of Arts", 1893-4.

for "List of the Members of the Institution of Civil Engineers", 2nd June 1894.

99

for "Collections Historical and Archæological relating to Montgomeryshire", vol. xxviii, pt. 3, vol. xxviii, pt. 1. for "Proceedings of the Sussex Archæological Society", vol. xxxix.

for 66

Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1892".

for "Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology", by J. W. Powell, Director of the Smithsonian Institution; large 4to.

for "The Maya Year", by Cyrus Thomas; "Bibliography of the Wakashan Languages", by J. C. Pilling; and "The Pamunkey Indians and Virginia", by J. G. Pollard. for "The Smithsonian Report for 1892".

for "The American Historical Register", 1894.