French Guard flags

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lee sherman
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French Guard flags

Post by lee sherman » Sun Sep 02, 2018 11:16 am

How did the companies flags differ from each other? Eg the white flag is senior but what about the other companies was it the amount of fleur-de-lis or was the companies flags all Identical?
TheRightfulKing2013
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Re: French Guard flags

Post by TheRightfulKing2013 » Fri Sep 07, 2018 2:16 pm

This blog here has these Gardes Francaises flags at the start of Louis XV's reign in 1715. There seems to have been 18 fleur de lys in each corner (with a white cross dividing the flag into four corners) for one version of the flag with a blue background, but not for the other version with has a white background. Both types have a crown at each end of the cross. the version with the blue background has fleur de lys (18 in each corner) in the flag. So my suspicion is that by 1715, the first and second companies would have had the blue background, while the 3rd and 4th would have had the white one. But Im unsure how many companies each regiment had (it may have been two, and those images (see below) may be showing the front and back of the same flag on each row).

Image.

Likewise for the Gardes Suisses, there seems to have been two flags. One coloured and one with an identical pattern but just the white colour at least during the War of the Spanish Succession.

https://onelover-ray.blogspot.com/2015/ ... isses.html

This website shows some information on the number of battalions in French regiments during Louis XIV's wars. Some had 2 or 3 battalions.

http://www.spanishsuccession.nl/armies/ ... ments.html
lee sherman
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Re: French Guard flags

Post by lee sherman » Fri Sep 07, 2018 8:06 pm

Yes the white flags are the Senior flags as in The King's or 1st battalion and then 2 coloured flags the 2nd battalion had just 3 coloured flags or in battle maybe just 1?

But guards says each "Company" had a flag just wondered if they were ALL identical or different abit like the English company flags had roman numerals I II III IV and so on

The Swiss had 4 company's per battalion and 4 battalions so would that be 1 Kings colour "White" for ALL 4 battalions and then 16 identical flags for the company's?.
TheRightfulKing2013
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Re: French Guard flags

Post by TheRightfulKing2013 » Fri Sep 07, 2018 8:16 pm

lee sherman wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 8:06 pm
Yes the white flags are the Senior flags as in The King's or 1st battalion and then 2 coloured flags the 2nd battalion had just 3 coloured flags or in battle maybe just 1?

But guards says each "Company" had a flag just wondered if they were ALL identical or different abit like the English company flags had roman numerals I II III IV and so on

The Swiss had 4 company's per battalion and 4 battalions so would that be 1 Kings colour "White" for ALL 4 battalions and then 16 identical flags for the company's?.
I don't know the answer to that for this regiment. However in the Gardes du Corps regiment, each company (there were 4) had a separate flag and they are shown at this link (scroll down page). There are no numerals on the flags so that probably suggests the French didnt use numerals on them to denote separate companies but I am not certain of that.
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