The white cross frequently appears on the early French flags. Fig. 188, the flag of the French Guards in the year 1563, is a good example of this. We find Favyn, in a book published in Paris in 1620, "Le Théâtre d'honneur et de Chevalerie," writing: "Le grand estendard de satin bleu celeste en riche broderie de fleurs de lys d'or a une grande croix plein de satin blanc, qui est la croix de France." Figs. 180 and 181 are taken from a MS. executed in the time of Louis XII., A.D. 1498, illustrating a battle scene; these two flags are placed by the side of the fleur-de-lys flag, Fig. 184. When Louis XI., in 1479, organised the national infantry we find him giving them as the national ensign a scarlet flag with white cross on it; and some two hundred years later we find the various provincial levies beneath flags of various designs and colours, but all agreeing in having the white cross as the leading feature. Fig. 182, for example, is that of the Soissonois. Desjardins, in his excellent book on the French flag,[69] gives a great many illustrations of these. In the Musée d'Artillerie in Paris we find a very valuable collection of martial equipments from the time of Charlemagne, and amongst these a fine series (original where possible, or, failing this copies) of the flags of France from the year 1250. The Huguenot party in France adopted the white flag, and when King Henry III., 1574 to 1589, himself a Protestant, came to the throne, the white flag became the royal ensign, and was fully adopted in the next reign, that of Henry IV., the first king of the house of Bourbon, as the national flag. The whole history of the flag prior to the Great Revolution, is somewhat confused, and in the year 1669, which we may consider about the middle of the Bourbon or white flag period,[70] we find the order given by the {108} Minister of the Marine that "the ensigns are to be blue, powdered with yellow fleurs-de-lys, with a large white cross in the middle." Merchant ships were to wear the same flag as the ships of war except that in the canton corner was to be placed the device of their province or town. Before the end of the year a new order was issued to the effect that "the ensigns at the stern are to be in all cases white," while the merchants were to fly the white flag with the device of the port in the corner. The white flag was sometimes plain, as in Fig. 183, and at other times provided with yellow fleurs-de-lys. On the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814, after the Republic, Consulate, and Empire, the white flag was again the flag of the nation, and remained so until 1830, its last appearance in France, unless or until the house of Bourbon again arises to the throne, when the restoration of the _drapeau blanc_ would probably follow. The white flag has therefore been the national ensign of France for over two hundred years.