Quebecois ancestor’s arms/ Fred White design

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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Wilfred Leblanc
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31 August 2007 04:27
 

Does anyone have a source ready at hand that would indicate whether or not an Antoine Leblanc dit Jolicoeur, who arrived with the Carignan-Salieres Regiment in Quebec in 1665, used a coat of arms, or was a direct male line descendant of an armiger in France?

Thanks for any counsel offered.

 

Fred Henry White IV

Monterey, California

 
dulongj
 
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dulongj
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04 September 2007 21:52
 

fwhite;49016 wrote:

Does anyone have a source ready at hand that would indicate whether or not an Antoine Leblanc dit Jolicoeur, who arrived with the Carignan-Salieres Regiment in Quebec in 1665, used a coat of arms, or was a direct male line descendant of an armiger in France?


The standard work for French-Canadian heraldry is Édouard-Zotique Massicotte and Régis Roy’s Armorial du Canada français. 2 vols. Montréal: Beauchemin, 1915-1918.  This work, while essential, is not complete.

 

I checked it and there is only one Leblanc in vol. 2, p. 135, but this chap, Sir Pierre-Evariste Leblanc was a deputy to the Québec parliament from Laval from 1882 to 1908.  From 1915 to at least 1918 he was the Lieutenant Governor.  He may be a descendant of your Antoine Leblanc dit Jolicoeur, but I suspect his arms were assumed when he was knighted on 3 June 1916 and did not inherited arms.  He had for arms: D’or, au chevron de queules, au chef d’azur chargé d’une étoile d’argent.

 

Given that Antoine was a mere soldier, and not an officer, and did not bear the title ecuyer (esquire), I would think that it is extremely unlikely that he was armigerous.

 

Sorry to disappoint you, but I am in the same boat.  I have many armigerous French-Canadian ancestors, but not along my paternal lineage.  Like others responding to your other post, I suggest you design new arms and assume them.  You need not mimic the arms of armigerous ancestors, but you should try to design arms that reflect French heraldic traditions.  To see my effort to honor my French heritage point your browser to http://habitant.org/arms.htm.

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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Wilfred Leblanc
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04 September 2007 22:14
 

Thanks for checking that out on my behalf, John. I admire your website, and have consulted it several times already. It transpires that you and I have a number of ancestors in common—Le Neuf and so forth. If you’re so inclined, you can examine the various parallels at <a href=“http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=wilfredleblanc&id=I1& class=“bbcode_url”>http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=wilfredleblanc&id=I1&>.

 
David Pritchard
 
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04 September 2007 22:43
 

Though this fact is probably too late a date to have applied to your ancestor, over 80,000 coats-of-arms of non-nobles were registered by the French King-of-Arms from 1696 until 1709. See these links for more information: http://www.heraldica.org/topics/france/dhozier.htm#edit; http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/fr_armge.html

L’Armorial général de France de Charles d’Hozier, click on a shield to see arms with similar charges. Works like an automated French version of Papworth’s Ordinary of Arms: http://www.davidboeno.org/GROEUVRE/armorial/0arm.html

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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Wilfred Leblanc
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05 September 2007 01:47
 

Thanks, David. The d’Hozier site is fun.

And John, to your guidance about trying to reflect French heraldic tradition, can I ask what aspects of that tradition you feel should be adhered to?

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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05 September 2007 11:51
 

For those who may not have discovered it, the French National Library (Bibliothèque nationale de France) has on-line the entire corpus of the d’Hozier Armorial general, both the printed volumes published in the 19th-20th centuries as well as the original hand-painted pages from 1696.

The best way I’ve found to search the armorial is this:

1.  Go to http://gallica.bnf.fr/, the home page of the BNF’s "Gallica" digital collection.

2.  Click the button on the menu at the top of the screen labelled "RECHERCHE."

3.  Enter the word "armorial" into the box labelled "MOTS DU TITRE" (words in the title) and the surname for which you’re searching in the box labelled "RECHERCHE LIBRE"

4. You’ll then get a list of hits.  Click the button with the little book and the volume containing the information will open up in a new window.  (The d’Hozier armorial is organized by province, so the same name could appear in a number of volumes and on a number of pages.)

5.  Scan down the index on the left side of the page, click the page number(s) beside the surname you’re looking for, and you’ll be taken to the page with the blazon.

 

I haven’t found an easy way to track down the original 1696 entry with the picture.  If you go back to the page with your search results, click RECHERCHE again, and enter just the word "armorial" in the "MOTS DU TITRE" box.  You’ll get a list of about 25 hits.  Scroll down until you find the one labelled simply Armorial general de France, with no other words.  Click the little book on that entry.  This will produce a list of volumes, labelled by province.  Open the volume for the province matching the one in which you found the blazon, and then, as far as I can tell, you just start flipping pages until you find the one you want.  There may be a better way, but I haven’t figured it out.

 

In any case, there are only three individuals in two families of Le Blancs in d’Hozier (although lots of Blancs and de Blancs).

 

Jean-Baptiste le Blanc, captain of infantry, from Marseille, "Azure three fusils in fess Argent, on a chief Gules a cross of Toulouse (une croix videe, clechee et pommettee) Or."

 

Antoine le Blanc and Philibert le Blanc, both lawyers (avocats) and former mayors of Beaune, a town in Burgundy, "Sable a fess Argent, over all a stag’s head caboshed (une rencontre de cerf) Or."

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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05 September 2007 12:01
 

Oops, add one Leblanc in d’Hozier:

Claude Leblanc, advocate, in the Generality of Burgundy (probably from Dijon):  Gules a swan Argent beaked and membered Sable.

 

Plus two more in an 1866 armorial of the nobility of Poitou (Alexandre Gouget’s Armorial du Poitou et état des nobles réservés dans toutes les élections de la généralité...):

 

- Francois Leblanc, Sieur de St. Charles (Neuville) - Azure a swan Argent.

- Leblanc, Sieur de La Baziniere (Mortiers) - Azure a swan Argent beaked and membered Sable.

 
dulongj
 
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dulongj
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08 September 2007 22:50
 

fwhite;49257 wrote:

And John, to your guidance about trying to reflect French heraldic tradition, can I ask what aspects of that tradition you feel should be adhered to?


Serves me right for pretending I am a French heraldry expert and then get an apparently simple question that is difficult for me to answer.  So what does comprise a French heraldic tradition?  I could just say if it is elegant, then it is French, but that would be absurd.

 

Unfortunately, most of the source I know discussing French heraldry concentrate on differences that do not mean a lot to roturiers like us.

 

The use of helmets, crowns, supporters, shape of the shield, and mottoes was different for the French and this can be found mentioned in several publications and on the Internet.  See in particular François Velde’s “French Heraldry: National Characteristics” at http://www.heraldica.org/topics/france/frhercha.htm and the dated Handbook of Heraldry by John E. Cussans (1893), which has a chapter on French Heraldry, at http://books.google.com/books?id=6z1kuj40sh0C&pg=PA313&dq=heraldry+in+france&as_brr=1#PPA310,M1.

 

But what we are more interested in is the aesthetic of French heraldry, what Velde calls a “certain flavor.”  In my case, I noted the prevalent use of a chevron in French heraldry and that the French chevron is more pointed, in some cases almost touching the top of the shield.  But certainly the French used many other ordinaries than the chevron.

 

There are also some charges more common in French heraldry than elsewhere, like the fleur-de-lis.  But again, the French use many more charges than just the fleur-de-lis.

 

I would say French heraldry is just as elaborate and pleasing to the eye as British heraldry.  If is more differentiated from other national styles by what surrounds the shield than what is on the shield.

 

I really recommend you sit down with the following books and look through them for examples of French Heraldry:

 

Morenas, Henri Jougla de, and Raoul de Warren. Grand Armorial de France. 7 vols. Paris: Les Editions Héraldiques, 1934-1952; reprint ed., Paris: Frankelve, 1975.  [This is the largest single collection of French arms in print.]

 

Pastoureau, Michel. Traité d’Héraldique. 2nd ed. Paris: Picard éditeur, 1993.  [Pastoureau takes a scientific approach towards heraldry and analyzes the distribution of various patterns across Europe.  You can search his tables and maps for ideas of common patterns used by the French.]

 

Volborth, Carl-Alexander von.  Heraldry: Customs, Rules and Styles.  London: New Orchard Editions, 1991.  [Von Volborth has several examples of French arms in this work worth reviewing.]

 

Lastly, you should consult Massicotte and Roy’s Armorial du Canada français for examples.

 

More to the point, what should we as French Canadians use as models in designing out arms?

 

Well first of all, in your case and mine, as we are both French-Canadian, I think we can safely ignore the Napoleonic heraldic innovations.  For us French heraldic traditions means the heraldry used in the seventeenth century at the founding of New France.

 

Also, I think we should avoid some of the really hideous heraldry that our cousins have imposed on us during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  I am thinking of the arms created for family associations in Quebec that are cluttered with every conceivable symbol.

 

The trick is you want to come up with a design that would have appealed to our seventeenth century ancestors and looks like it came from France in that period.  I would recommend that you take a look at the color images from the Armorial general available at Gallica for the province that your Leblanc ancestor came from in France.  There you will get an idea of common patterns used in the region.  But beware that the clerks compiling this work were more interested in raising fees than heraldry.  So you might see suspiciously repeated patterns across a variety of apparently unrelated surnames.  This was just the clerk cranking out arms to people to charge them the tax.  You will notice these mass produced arms because they really stick out.  Nevertheless, you can still use this source to get an idea of arms styles that your ancestor would have seen in his youth.

 

I just checked and the volume for Picardie, the home province of Antoine Leblanc dit Jolicoeur can be found at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k110595z.

 

As in all good heraldry, just keep the design simple; do not try to cram in too much symbolism that will escape most people.  Make it a bold design that will be visually pleasing and easy to recognize even from a distance.  And avoid overdoing the use of the fleur-de-lis.

 

I hope these scattered thoughts help.

 
dulongj
 
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dulongj
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08 September 2007 22:56
 

Ah Mr. McMillan you gave me false hope that you had stumbled upon a way to search the colored drawings of the Armorial générale de France, but I see that your clever technique really only works on the books Gallica has scanned that contains the blazons fpr selected provices from the Armorial générale de France.  A valuable technique to be sure, but I really regret that the Bibliothèque nationale has failed to provide the index we need to really take advantage of the color drawings.

What we need is to have them scan and make available the “Répertoire alphabétique des blazons coloriés de l’Armorial Général de France,” in 2 vols.  This manuscript index is in the Département des manuscripts.  Several months ago I wrote to them and asked if this is going to be done, but I have not received a response.

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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09 September 2007 02:12
 

dulongj;49415 wrote:

I just checked and the volume for Picardie, the home province of Antoine Leblanc dit Jolicoeur can be found at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k110595z.


Thanks a lot, cousin!


dulongj;49415 wrote:

As in all good heraldry, just keep the design simple; do not try to cram in too much symbolism that will escape most people.  Make it a bold design that will be visually pleasing and easy to recognize even from a distance.  And avoid overdoing the use of the fleur-de-lis.


Sounds like good advice to me!

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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09 September 2007 14:44
 

dulongj;49415 wrote:

I just checked and the volume for Picardie, the home province of Antoine Leblanc dit Jolicoeur can be found at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k110595z. . .

As in all good heraldry, just keep the design simple; do not try to cram in too much symbolism that will escape most people.  Make it a bold design that will be visually pleasing and easy to recognize even from a distance.  And avoid overdoing the use of the fleur-de-lis.


Interestingly, most all the shields on display in the Picardie volume conform to the advice above, and by my own lights have really stood the test of time. I imagine it’s safe to assume that Antoine Leblanc dit Jolicoeur would have opted for one in their vein. Perhaps I should think of a way to play on his "dit" name in my coat of arms, and let that alone be the charge, repeated a few times.

 
dulongj
 
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dulongj
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12 September 2007 10:20
 

fwhite;49430 wrote:

Perhaps I should think of a way to play on his "dit" name in my coat of arms, and let that alone be the charge, repeated a few times.


As Jolicoeur literally means pretty heart, perhaps you should incorporate a heart as a charge.  I have seen your proposed arms now in other postings and a red heart would certainly go well with your general design.  But you would probably have to drop one of the other charges, otherwise, the design would be too cluttered.  Just my humble opinion.

 
David Pritchard
 
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12 September 2007 15:46
 

Dear John,

In the name of Antoine Leblanc dit Jolicœur, would the ‘dit’ (from the verb dire) be equivalent to ‘called’ in English? I find this incorporation of a nickname into his full name to be unusual, at least from an English perspective, but was this usage common in France at the time or is it a product of Colonial Québec?

 
Wilfred Leblanc
 
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Wilfred Leblanc
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13 September 2007 01:38
 

The "dit" does mean called, and the "dit name" was a product of colonial Quebec. John DuLong is undoubtedly a better historian of this phenomenon than I am, but I think the convention began out of the necessity of distinguishing between multiple people with the same name. In some cases, the dit name was abandoned after a generation or two, while in others the original surname was abandoned and the dit name took its place, such that the descendants of a Jean-Pierre Boucher dit le Sauvage might be named either Boucher or Sauvage.

 
dulongj
 
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dulongj
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18 September 2007 17:02
 

David Pritchard;49593 wrote:

In the name of Antoine Leblanc dit Jolicœur, would the ‘dit’ (from the verb dire) be equivalent to ‘called’ in English? I find this incorporation of a nickname into his full name to be unusual, at least from an English perspective, but was this usage common in France at the time or is it a product of Colonial Québec?


The use of "dit" names was common in French Canada.  There are a number of theories why, but I think, as Fred White suggests, the most logical was to distinguish between unique families with the same surname.  For example, I descend from Brunet dit Bourbonnais, Brunet dit Belhumeur, and Brunet dit Latang, all unrelated with different origins back in France but contemporaries in Montreal.  Some of the aliases point to physical traits, personality characteristics, or origins back in France.  The use of aliases was also particularly common among the soldiers in New France.

 

To make matters more interesting a family might have more than one alias and two brothers might use difference aliases.

 

Overtime families tend to drop one or the other.  For example, my great-grandfather went by Bourbonnais though his father was Brunet dit Bourbonnais.

 

I hope this answers your question.

 
David Pritchard
 
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David Pritchard
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18 September 2007 19:37
 

You have answered my onamastic question fully. Thank you very much.