_The Fleur-de-Lis._--Few figures have puzzled the antiquary so much as the fleur-de-lis. Countless origins have been suggested for it; we have even lately had the height of absurdity urged in a suggested phallic origin, which only rivals in ridiculousness the long since exploded legend that the fleurs-de-lis in the arms of France were a {273} corrupted form of an earlier coat, "Azure, three toads or," the reputed coat of arms of Pharamond! To France and the arms of France one must turn for the origin of the heraldic use of the fleur-de-lis. To begin with, the form of the fleur-de-lis as a mere presumably meaningless form of decoration is found long before the days of armory, in fact from the earliest period of decoration. It is such an essentially natural development of decoration that it may be accepted as such without any attempt to give it a meaning or any symbolism. Its earliest heraldic appearances as the finial of a sceptre or the decoration of a coronet need not have had any symbolical character. We then find the "lily" accepted as having some symbolical reference to France, and it should be remembered that the iris was known by the name of a lily until comparatively modern times. It is curious--though possibly in this case it may be only a coincidence--that, on a coin of the Emperor Hadrian, Gaul is typified by a female figure holding in the hand a lily, the legend being, "Restutori Galliæ." The fleur-de-lis as the finial of a sceptre and as an ornament of a crown can be taken back to the fifth century. Fleurs-de-lis upon crowns and coronets in France are at least as old as the reign of King Robert (son of Hugh Capet) whose seal represents him crowned in this manner.