450
NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. iv. DEC. 2, ion.
MURDER IN AMERICA. I was recently
told that in Household Words or All the
Year Round about 1860, in a series of articles
on murders in various countries, one is
mentioned committed by a man named
Holworthy in the United States. He is
said to have killed his wife and children
under exceptionally terrible circumstances,
and afterwards to have committed suicide.
I shall be very grateful to any reader who
can give me the reference.
F. M. R. HOLWORTHY. F.S.G.
Bromley, Kent.
HADRIA. Can anybody give me tbe name of a novel published some fifteen years ago, one of whose characters was named Hadria ? R. USSHER.
GEESE AND MICHAELMAS DAY. What is the connexion between the eating of a goose and the festival of St. Michael and All Angels, or Michaelmas Day ? RAVEN.
[See Brewer's 'Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.']
EARLY ARMS OF FRANCE.
(11 S. iv. 389.)
I DO not believe that the ancient arms of France were ever anything but Azure, semee of fleurs-de-lis or, but the following extract from a notebook of my own may prove, at least, amusing in this connexion. ^ The late Rev. E. B. Elliott, of St. Mark's, Kemptown, Brighton, in his ' Horse Apocalypticae,' iv. 69, says that the three frogs in Revelation xvi. 13, 14, mean France, because three frogs are the old arms of France ! Montfaucon, in his ' Monu- ments de la Monarchie Francaise,' gives a frog as one of the " monuments " (badges ?) of King Childeric (956) ; and it occurs on a medal found in the tomb of Childeric at S. Brece, near Tournay, in 1623. Typhotus (p. 25) gives as a device on a coin of Louis VI. a frog with the inscription " Mihi terra lacusque." M. Court de Gibelin, in his ' Monde Primitif compare avec le Monde Moderne' (Paris, 1781), says (p. 181): "Nous verrons de voir que les armoiries de la Guyenne sont un leopard, celles des Celtes (surtout les Belgiques) etaient un lion, et celles des Francs un crapaud" ; and (p. 195) he relates that in the ' Cosmographie de Munster'(?) it is stated that the King of France, having penetrated from
Westphalia into La Tongre, saw, in a dream,
a figure with three heads, a lion, an eagle,
and a frog. A celebrated Druid, whom he
- onsulted, assured him that the figures
ypified the three powers which should reign successively in Gaul : the Celts symbolized the lion, Normans by the eagle, and Franks by the frog.
In a note upon one of the prophecies of Nostradamus, De Garancieres observes that before the kings of France took the fleurs-de- lis as arms the French bore three frogs (London, 1672, p. 251). M. Pynsius, editor of Fabyan's ' Chronicles,' at the beginning of the account of Pharamond (reigned at Treves, A.D. 420), states that there is a shield of arms bearing three frogs with the words " This is the olde armes of Fraunce " (p. 57, Ellis ed.). In the Franciscan Church of Innspruck there are twenty-three bronze figures representing the most distinguished persons of the House of Austria : among them Clovis, King of France, and on his shield three fleurs-de-lis and three frogs. The article on ' Heraldry ' in the ' Encyclo- paedia Metropolitana ' says :
" Paulus Emilius blazons the arms of France, Argent, three diadems gules ; others say they bear three toads sable on a field vert, ' which cannot be good armory ' (Guillim, cap. i.), which, if ever they did, must have been before the existence of the present rules of blazonry."
When the French under Louis XIV. took the city of Arras from the Spaniards, the prophecy of Nostradamus was recalled, " Les anciens crapauds prendront Sara " (Seward's ' Anecdotes,' quoted in Wheeler's ' Noted Names of Fiction,' s.v. ' Jean Crapaud'). J. B. P.
A long-exploded legend stated that the fleurs-de-lis in the arms of France were a corrupted form of an earlier coat, Azure, three toads or, the reputed coat of arms of Pharamond.
According to the ancient tradition, at the baptism of Clovis, King of the Franks, the Virgin sent a lily by an angel as a mark of her special favour. This story was advanced by the French bishops at the Council of Trent in a dispute as to the precedence of their sovereign. The old legend as to Clovis would naturally identify the flower with him, and it should be noted that the names Clovis, Lois, Loys, and Louis are identical. "Loys" was the signature of the kings of France until the time of Louis XIII. There can be little doubt that the term "fleur-de-lis" is quite as likely to be a corruption of " fleur-de-lois " as flower of the lily. The chief point is that the desire was
