The French expression _les armes parlantes_ is more musical than ours, and examples of canting arms are perhaps as common in French as in English heraldry, whilst punning book-plates are numerous amongst modern specimens, especially those belonging to men of arts and letters. [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF C. J. L. COQUEREAU.] The Gallic cock is naturally a favourite charge, and may be found frequently in conjunction with such names as Lecoq, or Coquebert, or Coquereau, yet it by no means follows that these can be strictly termed canting arms, for, as Salverte remarks in his “Essai sur les Noms,” “Le même usage à été alternativement cause et effet,” so that whilst numerous armorial ensigns were borrowed from the bearers’ names, so also, in many cases, surnames were borrowed from the arms. He, therefore, who bore a cock on his shield may well have become known in the course of time as Jean Le Coq. One of the funniest bits of canting heraldry ever printed occurred in the “Daily News” (London) of 5th April, 1892. The Paris correspondent, writing of Ravachol, the murderer, said: “His family have a place in the ‘Armorial de Forez,’ the peerage and gentry book of Saint-Chamond, where Ravachol was born. His ancestors are set down in that volume as dating from 1600. _Their shield bears argent with a fess azure, three roses or, and a head of cabbage or, with a radish argent._ On the maternal side the motto is a canting one, being ‘Rave-à-chou,’ which is doubtless the origin of the curiously striking name of Ravachol.” It would be amusing to see how the writer would “trick” the shield he has vainly endeavoured to describe; besides, as was proved at the trial, the murderer’s name was not Ravachol, nor was he even a Frenchman by birth. In 1768 Monier designed a very handsome plate for _Louis Vacher_, in which not only does a cow appear on the shield, but both the supporters are also cows, in allusion to the owner’s name. A plate recently found in an old French book bore the inscription: “Des livres de M. Fauveau, avocat au Parlement.” The arms were, Party per fess azure and or, in chief three scythes (_faux_) argent, and in base a calf’s head (_veau_) gules. [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF LOUIS VACHER, 1768.] [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF P. COCHON.] There is no term of opprobrium more offensive to a Frenchman than that of _cochon_, although ignorant English tourists occasionally apply it by mistake to a cabdriver. But here we have a gentleman of the old school who rejoiced in the name, and put a little pig in his field in order that there might be no mistake about it. The moon and stars are thrown into the bargain, as being of secondary importance. This plate of Jacob Houblon, Esq., is unmistakably the work of R. Mountaine, and we may therefore fix its date as 1750, or thereabouts. Although the workmanship of the plate is English, the _armes parlantes_ it bears are obviously of French origin, the hop vine signifying Houblon.