CHAPTER XIII.
CANTING ARMS AND PUNNING PLATES.
Many of these quaint devices on British coats-of-arms are distinctly of French origin.
Thus the Montagues bear in their arms three fusils in fesse, the sharply serrated points of which suggest mountain peaks--the original name of the family having been Montacute. The French word for hedgehog is _hérisson_, therefore the hedgehog is the charge of the family of Harrison; the swallow is in French the _hirondelle_, hence the swallow is placed on the shield of the Arundels:
“More swift than bird hight Arundelle, That gave him name, and in his shield of arms emblazoned well, He rides amid the armëd troop.”
Instances might be almost indefinitely multiplied; these are amongst the best because the most obvious, others, which are so recondite as to require lengthy descriptions, defeat their own purpose.
The French expression _les armes parlantes_ is more musical than ours, and examples of canting arms are perhaps as common in French as in English heraldry, whilst punning book-plates are numerous amongst modern specimens, especially those belonging to men of arts and letters.
[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF C. J. L. COQUEREAU.]
The Gallic cock is naturally a favourite charge, and may be found frequently in conjunction with such names as Lecoq, or Coquebert, or Coquereau, yet it by no means follows that these can be strictly termed canting arms, for, as Salverte remarks in his “Essai sur les Noms,” “Le même usage à été alternativement cause et effet,” so that whilst numerous armorial ensigns were borrowed from the bearers’ names, so also, in many cases, surnames were borrowed from the arms. He, therefore, who bore a cock on his shield may well have become known in the course of time as Jean Le Coq.
One of the funniest bits of canting heraldry ever printed occurred in the “Daily News” (London) of 5th April, 1892. The Paris correspondent, writing of Ravachol, the murderer, said: “His family have a place in the ‘Armorial de Forez,’ the peerage and gentry book of Saint-Chamond, where Ravachol was born. His ancestors are set down in that volume as dating from 1600. _Their shield bears argent with a fess azure, three roses or, and a head of cabbage or, with a radish argent._ On the maternal side the motto is a canting one, being ‘Rave-à-chou,’ which is doubtless the origin of the curiously striking name of Ravachol.”
It would be amusing to see how the writer would “trick” the shield he has vainly endeavoured to describe; besides, as was proved at the trial, the murderer’s name was not Ravachol, nor was he even a Frenchman by birth.
In 1768 Monier designed a very handsome plate for _Louis Vacher_, in which not only does a cow appear on the shield, but both the supporters are also cows, in allusion to the owner’s name.
A plate recently found in an old French book bore the inscription: “Des livres de M. Fauveau, avocat au Parlement.” The arms were, Party per fess azure and or, in chief three scythes (_faux_) argent, and in base a calf’s head (_veau_) gules.
[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF LOUIS VACHER, 1768.]
[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF P. COCHON.]
There is no term of opprobrium more offensive to a Frenchman than that of _cochon_, although ignorant English tourists occasionally apply it by mistake to a cabdriver. But here we have a gentleman of the old school who rejoiced in the name, and put a little pig in his field in order that there might be no mistake about it. The moon and stars are thrown into the bargain, as being of secondary importance.
This plate of Jacob Houblon, Esq., is unmistakably the work of R. Mountaine, and we may therefore fix its date as 1750, or thereabouts. Although the workmanship of the plate is English, the _armes parlantes_ it bears are obviously of French origin, the hop vine signifying Houblon.
[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF JACOB HOUBLON, ESQ.]
Samuel Pepys in his diary mentions that the five brothers Houblon came to supper at his house on May 15, 1666. They were rich merchants, one of them later on coming to be Lord Mayor of London, and the first Governor of the Bank of England.
According to an epitaph in the church of St. Mary Woolnoth, in London, their ancestor was one Peter Houblon, who came over from Flanders.
The late Lord Palmerston was descended from a Sir John Houblon, who was Lord Mayor of London in 1695.
[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF JOHN VIGNOLES.]
As recently as 1894 the death of a descendant of the family was announced, that of Mr. Richard Archer Houblon, J.P., of Cambridgeshire, aged eighty-five years, whose estate was valued at over £50,000, whilst but a short time since a Colonel Archer Houblon was in command of a battalion of the Royal Berkshire Regiment.
Of somewhat similar origin, but from the grapevine, come the arms of the Vignoles family, a branch of which, long settled in England, produced the well-known civil engineer.
[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF J. L. ROBILLARD.]
On a shield borne by _Robillard_ are two billiard cues in saltire between four billiard balls.
For M. Champfleury, the artist, Aglaüs Bouvenne has drawn a flowery field (a _champ fleurie_), and for the Comtesse de Noé a Noah’s ark, whilst Paul Cordier plays on his own name in a charming little vignette representing a rope-maker (_cordier_) at work in his rope-walk.
[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF PAUL CORDIER.]
A plate composed and engraved by Evart Van Mayders for Mons. F. Raisin, has a fox vainly climbing over a book to reach some grapes (_raisins_), and exclaiming, in disgust, “They are too green.”
Although the late M. Eugene Rimmel lived many years in England, and wrote a charming “History of Perfumes” in our language, he was a thoroughly patriotic Frenchman. His countrymen ever found a friend in him, and his exertions on behalf of their sick and wounded during the terrible war of 1870-71 should keep his memory for ever fresh. His book-plate is a quaint little medley of the useful and the ornamental; the distilling apparatus, and a fountain of perfume, surmounted by a crest of rose-buds, suffice to indicate the scent, but not the descent, of Eugene Rimmel.
M. Milsand, of Dijon, used a book-plate containing an imitation of a bank-note, having on it the figures 1000 and 100 (_mille cent_), whilst Charles Monselet has a pretty little sketch, by Devambez, of a corner of his library with some books heaped up (_Livres amoncelés_). The plate of M. Wolf explains itself better in English than in French. “_Quærens quem devoret_” (see page 229).
[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF EUGENE RIMMEL.]
M. Aglaüs Bouvenne represents a dog balancing the monogram of Alexis Martin (page 158), whilst Mons. L. Delatre confides a book, in sumptuous binding, to the mouth of another, with the motto, “Honneur a qui rapporte.” A pretty idea, but surely not a very practical one (see page 240).
It is his whim! _C’est sa toquade_, as M. Cousin remarks on his plate (see page 231).
[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF CHARLES MONSELET.]
In their treatment of his dread Satanic Majesty the French display delightful grace and delicacy.
Indeed, _Le Diable Boiteux_ of Le Sage is very much of a gentleman; Mephistopheles in Gounod’s opera is a far more interesting personality than his pupil Faust; whilst in “Orphée aux Enfers” Offenbach certainly contrived to enlist our sympathies on behalf of Pluto.
Many a French shop is dedicated to the Evil One, but in every case the inscription is respectful, as, for instance, _Au Bon Diable_. It is almost a term of endearment, the expression “un mauvais petit Diable,” whilst no proper English word can convey the sense of rollicking fun contained in _Diablerie_.
[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF MONS. WOLF.]
As in literature, so in art, the Devil of the French, may be grotesque, bizarre, comic, terrible, yet in all he is a superior being, in short a Gentleman in Black, never the hideous, repulsive individual we are accustomed to see portrayed (with two horns and a tail) in English comic art.
Nothing could more eloquently convey the French conception of the character than Sir Henry Irving’s inimitable representation of Mephistopheles at the Lyceum a short time since. Does not this book-plate recall his appearance in the part?
[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF MONS. A. CLERICEAU.]
[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF MONS. B. COUSIN.]
[Illustration]