Large seal of France

The Grand seal of France is the official Sceau of the French Republic.

Description

The Large seal of France represents the Liberté under the features of Junon sitting, capped with a laurel wreath erased with seven points. Of an arm it holds a crossed beam of a spade and other it is pressed on a struck rudder of a Coq. With its feet a vase with the letters “S” “U” (Vote for all). On its line, in the background of the symbols of arts (capital), agriculture (sheaf of corn) and industry (toothed wheel). In circular legend “FRENCH REPUBLIC, DEMOCRATIC, ONE AND INDIVISIBLE”. The mention “24 FEV.1848” (date of the proclamation of the II {{E}} République by Lamartine) appeared under the base of the statue: it was erased, probably about 1878.

The counter-seal (towards seal) comprises the words “IN THE NAME OF French people” surrounded by a crown of oak and bay-tree tied by corn ears and bunches of grapes and circular mention “EQUALITY, FRATERNITY, FREEDOM”.

History

The first seals were created by the kings Mérovingiens to authenticate their acts and to order the execution of it. Simple rings in the beginning, then carried into pendentive, the royal seals increased under the Capétiens until reaching 12 cm in diameter. They are dimensions of the current seal.

All the royal seals adopted the type of majesty representing the king sitting on his throne as a dispenser of justice. But each king chose his seal, part single which disappeared with him. All the edicts, ordinances, decrees and declarations were then sealed.

After the abolition of monarchy and the introduction of the Republic on September 21st, 1792, the end of the Ancien Mode was symbolized by the breaking of the seals of the State and their sending with the Currency. As of September 1792, under the impulse of Danton, then Minister for Justice, the Convention fixes the effigy - strong dynamics - seal of the First Republic: the Liberté is represented upright, supported with a hand on a beam, and other on a surmounted lance of the bonnet of Freedom.

Napoleon, Louis XVIII and Charles X takes again the seal of majesty, Louis-Philippe being satisfied with the representation of its bust.

It is with the Second Republic that goes up the current seal. The latter, after having used from February 24th to September 8th, 1848 the seal of the First Republic, entrusts to the engraver Jacques-Jean Barre the responsibility to plot a new drawing.

Use

See also: List of the texts sealed by the Large seal of France since 1946

Under the Second Republic the use of the Large Seal of France tends to be reduced to the laws and decrees of the National Assembly and the diplomatic treaties. It is at that time that the title of Minister of Justice is officially assistant of that of Ministre for Justice.

After the Second Empire, the practice of the sealing of the laws is little by little abandoned, the Republic holding it for the only constitutional acts and the treaties (of which that of Versailles).

Under the IV {{E}} Republic, only was sealed the Constitution of October 27th, 1946. Since the V {{E}} Republic, after the sealing of the Constitution of October 4th, 1958, the practice was taken to seal certain constitutional modifications.

Sealing

The ceremonies of sealing always take place with the Chancellerie where the Minister of Justice, Ministre for Justice, preserves the press to be sealed fixed on a piece of furniture ordered by Jean-Jacques-Governed of Cambacérès in 1810 and single matrices of the Seal of the State.

Wax

The scelleurs formerly employed plastic wax which they modelled with the wafer hand coarsely circular to which the press gave their final form.

Nowadays, the liquid wax is directly cast in the mould represented by the lower matrix surrounded by a mobile metal circle. The higher matrix comes to apply to the honeycomb thus run, but it should be waited until this one cooled sufficiently highest offerer but one pasty consistency.

The use of the Large Seal having been practically abandoned between 1920 and 1946, the formula of wax had been lost. In 1946, wax tests were undertaken by the Service sigillographic of the Public records.

Color

The coloring of the seals appeared at the end of the 12th century. The royal chancellery of the Ancien Mode used green wax (on red and green silk lakes) for the perpetual acts, and yellow wax for the temporary acts (on double tail of parchment), the administrative correspondence or simple the mandements (on simple tail of parchment).

The Restoration, the Monarchy of July and the III {{E}} République preserved this yellow wax, while the I {{Re}} République, the Consulat and the Empire adopted red wax.

The Constitution of 1946 was the subject of a sealing according to unusual methods: the red wax was used for purely material reasons. Thereafter, the color of the seal, initially yellow, in accordance with the use of IIIe Republic, is green since 2002.

Lakes

The Empire sealed on broad yellow and blue silk ribbons, the Republic and the Consulate on a tricolor braid.

IIIe Republic, imitating the monarchical modes, used a double red and green gallon

Since 1946, the tricolor gallon is of use.

Random links: