“‘The old Government had the “Généalogistes du Roi,” for proofs of nobility, and the “Juges d’Armes,” such as d’Hozier and Cherieu. The Monarchical Governments of this century had the “Conseil du Sceau des Titres,” now suppressed. The archives of these officers are now dispersed, part to the Bibliothèque Nationale (Cabinet des Titres), part to the Hôtel de Soubise (in the series M. and MM.), part to the Ministère de la Justice (for the period after 1789). In short, the equivalent of the Heralds’ College of England never existed in France. However, the Conseil du Sceau had some similarity to that body. There is no Heraldic Society, yet some persons, without legal authority, occupy themselves with questions of nobility, but they necessarily cannot be regarded as altogether trustworthy. Not knowing of a Heralds’ College in France, I cannot accuse the Commune of having burnt the archives. The fires of 1871 destroyed the parochial registers (entries of birth, marriage, and death) preserved at the Hôtel de Ville, and in the Library of the Louvre, which included some precious MSS. containing some correspondence of the last two centuries.’” “ARTHUR VICARS, _Ulster_.” It will be seen that reference is made in the above letter to a certain un-official Heraldic Society, but shortly after the above correspondence was published, even that body was dissolved. In May, 1895, there was sold by auction in the Hôtel des Ventes, in Paris, the whole of the archives accumulated by the French Heraldic College. Although it is true the institution was never anything but a private enterprise, it had had an uninterrupted existence of more than half a century, during which period a great store of genealogical documents had been amassed relating to the titled families of France. It was founded in 1841 by the Marquis de Magny, the compiler of the well-known “Livre d’Or de la Noblesse de France,” but the present generation of Frenchmen did not care sufficiently for rules of precedence and genealogical trees to support the institution. Hence the sale, consisting, it is computed, of 40,000 genealogical trees, and about 400,000 original family documents. As to Frenchmen generally, they seem now to attach little importance to heraldry, and few literary men place arms on their book-plates. In fact, as M. Henri Bouchot observes: “Le blason à fait son temps, il ne se rencontre plus guère que dans les travaux des héraldistes et détonne un peu en ce moment.” As a simple guide to French heraldic terms may be mentioned: “Traité Complet de la Science du Blason,” par Jouffroy D’Eschavannes. Edouard Rouveyre, rue des Saints Pères, Paris, 1880. This contains an excellent “Dictionnaire des Termes de Blason.”