After Waterloo, many high-ranking and not-so-high-ranking Bonapartists (including the emperor’s nephew Jerome) came to the U.S., most of them having been outlawed by the restored Bourbon regime. Several of them were involved in a project to introduce the cultivation of wine grapes and olives in what was then the Alabama Territory, a venture known in French as the Société colonial de la vigne et de l’olivier and in English as the "Vine and Olive Colony."
Congress granted the group four townships (a survey township in the U.S. being six miles square), totalling 92,160 acres, or 37,300 hectares, at $2/acre, on condition that they settle the land and cultivate grapes and olives.
About 200 colonists actually settled in Alabama, many of them not Bonapartists but Frenchmen who had fled the Haitian revolution or German workers recruited by the organizers. But very few of the big Bonapartist names were among them. Nevertheless, at least four did so, and we have their arms from the Armorial du premier empire.
Lt Gen Count Charles Lefebvre Desnouettes (b. 1773; in Alabama 1817-22; d. at sea on return to France, 1822) – Quarterly, 1st Azure a sword palewise Argent hilted and pommelled Or (the insignia of a military count); 2nd Argent a lion rampant Sable armed and langued and carrying a standard Gules; 3rd Sable a pine tree ensigned with a star Or and supported at the foot on the sinister side by a lion rampant Argent; 4th Vert a hunting-horn Or surmounted of a scimitar bendwise Argent hilted and pommelled Or.
http://www.americanheraldry.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1272&stc=1&d=1379942276
Lt Gen Baron Henri-Dominique Lallemand (b. Metz, 1777; to Philadelphia ca 1817, then to Alabama and New Orleans; d. Bordentown, N.J., 1823) - Per fess, the chief per pale Argent a ruined tower Sable and Gules a sword palewise Argent (the insignia of a military baron); the base Azure a lion rampant Or armed and langued Gules the dexter paw resting on a pile of cannonballs Sable.
http://www.americanheraldry.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1273&stc=1&d=1379942624
H.-D. Lallemand was the younger brother of the Baron Charles Lallemand who went to Texas to try and establish a Bonapartist colony there. Charles received part of the Alabama land grant but sold his interest to finance the Texas venture. He eventually became an American citizen but returned to France in 1839. The two brothers’ arms were totally different. I’ll post Charles’s separately.
Gen Count Bertrand Clauzel (b. Mirepoix, 1772; in Alabama ca 1817-20; d. Secourrieu, 1842) – Quarterly, 1st Azure a sword palewise Argent hilted and pommelled Or (insignia of a military count); 2nd Azure three stars 1 and 2 Argent; 3rd Azure two chevronels Or between three dexter hands Argent; 4th Or three crabs claws upward Gules.
http://www.americanheraldry.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1274&stc=1&d=1379942802
Captain Victor de Grouchy (b. 1796; in Alabama 1817-abt 1820); d. Paris, 1864; the younger son of Marshal Count Emanuel de Grouchy) – Or fretty of six pieces Azure on an inescutcheon Argent three trefoils Vert.
http://www.americanheraldry.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1275&stc=1&d=1379942997
The Grouchys were Breton nobility and bore these arms from before the Revolution. Captain Grouchy’s father, the marshal, bore them with the addition of a canton Azure charged with a sword palewise, the emblem of a military count of the empire. The marshal also came to the U.S. and received part of the Alabama land but never got much farther south than Washington, D.C., sticking mainly to the Philadelphia area.
The vine and olive colony was unsuccessful for many reasons, not the least of which was that the climate and soil were not very well suited to growing Vitis vinifera. There have a been a lot of romantic but not very factual stories that have grown up over the years; for a good serious history of the venture see Rafe Blaufarb, Bonapartists in the Borderlands. The settlers left behind the name of Marengo County and the city of Demopolis and, I’m told, thousands of what are now wild olive trees scattered around the area.
I understand the concept of the canton to represent a military count/baron, but a quarter? Do you know if the other quarters in these several arms represent family lines or are they similar to what we see here when Americans sometimes create coats of arms that have the look of quartered arms but are in fact just what we might consider poorly designed?
I don’t think Desnouttes or the Lallemands had arms until they were devised in connection with their ennoblement under the empire. Not so sure about Clauzel, although I did find that after returning to France he dropped the countly quarter and bore the stars in Q1, the chevronels in 2 & 3, and the crabs in 4.
Henri Lallemand’s brother Charles bore these arms:
http://www.americanheraldry.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1276&stc=1&d=1379957103
Someone has a French Wikipedia project creating rolls of arms of the nobility of the First Empire, and if you scan those you’ll find that quarterly arms seem to have been the norm.