Sunday 29 May 2011

Colours of French La Reine Infantry Regiment - French infantry in Canada series No.1


 
 
The second battalion of La Reine in Canada carried the battalion colours (the upper colour) from 1755 until the 8th September 1760 "when General Levis ordered the colours to be burnt following the British refusal to grant the Honours of War as part of the terms of capitulation" (René Chartrand, "The French Soldier in Colonial America"). Dashed unsporting and ungentlemanly! (Of the British, that is... ;-))

Apparently only the single battalion regiment Angoumois carried its white colonel's colour in North America during the Seven Years War; the rest of the regular infantry carried only the regimental or battalion colours (drapeaux d'ordonnance).

Unfortunately the blog does not allow me to post these flags as a vector file, which would be both a smaller file size and much more crisp and detailed.

8 comments:

  1. Thanks, FB! Glad you like it. :-)

    Cheers,

    David.

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  2. Sir David, what a splendid standard!

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  3. Very nicley done, I didn't realise they never carried the Colonels colour in America, dammit!!

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  4. Thanks, Bill. I do like those French 18th century colours - something very elegant and satisfying about them. :-)

    All the best,

    David.

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  5. Thanks, Ray. Wargaming is all ImagiNations of a sort, isn't it? So I'm sure supplying your SYW French in NA with colonels' flags even if, in reality, they were not carried is not a problem. After all, they could and might well have been - and it's not like giving them a Roman eagle to carry instead. That would look a mite silly. :-)

    Cheers,

    David.

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  6. Magnifique!

    I love seeing the early Canadien standards.

    So sad that they were all burned at Montreal...

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  7. Thanks, Murdock. :-)

    Yes, indeed, they were fine colours. A great pity too (though perhaps understandable in the circumstances!) that almost all the classic Bourbon 18th century infantry colours were destroyed in the Revolution.

    Cheers,

    David.

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