ASSYRIAN MONUMENTS. 147 



If Louis VII were the first to use it as a royal emblem, 

 it is more likely that he did so after his return from 

 the Holy Land ; for it is hardly conceivable that his 

 artist, in copying the Iris, should have exactly copied 

 the horn emblem of Assyria, ligature and all ! 



Then Mr. Conway ^ writes : " It was probably through 

 the sanctity with which the words of Christ invested the 

 lily that the 'fleur-de-lys' became the emblem of France; 

 one legend being that, after one of the battles of the 

 Crusaders, their white banner was found covered with it." 



I think these legends somehow point to the Crusades 

 as the beginning of this emblem in French heraldry. 

 In Syria the French Crusaders may have become cognizant 

 of the ' fleur-de-lys ' as a mystic emblem,^ the origin of 

 which may have been forgotten or unknown to the people 

 of the Holy Land, and not improbably some of the 

 Crusaders may have adopted it tale quale, painted on 

 their shields, as a lucky device. 



Prof. Minasse Tcheraz, an Armenian and a member of 

 the Ninth International Congress of Orientalists, informed 

 me that in Armenia they have a large number of ancient 

 manuscripts, in which the ' fleur-de-lys ' frequently occurs 

 as an illumination to the initial letters. Some of these 

 MSS. are much older than the Crusade periods. 



The ' fleur-de-lys,' either in the form used in heraldry, 



* ' Mystic Tree and Flowers,' by M. D. Conway, Fraser's Magazine for 

 December, 1870, p. 716. 



' Vide Syrian Sphinx, fig. 73. 



