Henri IV's white plume, emblem of King Henri IV of France, was originally a large bouquet of white feathers worn on Henri IV's helmet during the battle of Ivry on March 14, 1590, during the Wars of Religion. The plume, mentioned in the first accounts written just after the battle, served as a rallying point for the royal army on the battlefield. It was also a symbol that brought together Catholic supporters of Henri IV and Huguenots, and then, after Henri IV's conversion, all Frenchmen.
In the first half of the 17th century, Agrippa d'Aubigné coined the phrase "Ralliez-vous à mon panache blanc" ("Rally to my white plume"), which Hardouin de Péréfixe and Voltaire later added to in the highly successful La Henriade. The white plume gradually became a specific attribute of Henri IV, the main elements of his legend having been established.
In the 19th century, the white plume became a royalist and legitimist emblem. During the Restoration, it symbolized the rallying of the French to the Bourbon monarchy, attempting to assimilate Louis XVIII to a new Henri IV. It also lent historical depth to the use of the white flag. In 1873, to justify his plan for monarchical restoration and his rejection of the tricolor flag, the Comte de Chambord appealed to the imagination associated with the white plume.
Under the Third Republic, images depicting Henri IV and his white plume multiplied to meet the needs of developing school education. The rallying formula was taught in schools. Henri IV became a patriotic king, integrated into the republican and national pantheon, his white plume symbolizing the union of the French.
The white plume then became a personal folkloric attribute of Henri IV, like the hen in the pot, which is still used today.
Birth of an emblem
Warrior emblem
Henri IV's white plume was originally an emblem of war, worn at the battle of Ivry on March 14, 1590, one of the battles of the Wars of Religion. It was not an emblem reserved for the king. In the 16th century, the high nobility commonly wore plumes, and large feather bouquets, often white, during battles. They are made of natural feathers, chosen from the most white. Most often, these are ostrich or peacock feathers. Apart from the military use of plumes, feathers were an indispensable part of men's headgear at the time.
At the time of the Battle of Ivry, feather color was often a sign of recognition: supporters of the King wore white plumes, Spaniards red plumes, and Ligueurs white and black plumes. It was during the Wars of Religion that white became a color associated with the King of France.At the battle of Ivry, the two opposing armies, the royal army on one side and the League army on the other wore plumes. Henri IV wore a large bouquet of feathers, making him "quite remarkable for the large white plume he wore on his teste, and another on his horse", according to the Discours véritable de la victoire obtenue par le Roy en la bataille donnée près le village d'Ivry..., often attributed to Étienne Pasquier, published shortly after the battle and widely circulated.
The Gascon poet Guillaume de Saluste du Bartas dedicated another work to the battle of Ivry in the same year as the event, just before his death in August 1590. In his verses, du Bartas, driven by a fairytale imagination, likens the plume to a shrub, giving this ornament an astonishing metamorphosis
"A horrible panache
Shades his salad and seems a shrub
Which, by low esmondé, croist le long d'un ruisseau.
As soon as Heaven wraths against it,
From its undulating head, the green tuft grows
Or up, or down; and floats, serf of the wind
Right hand, left hand, backward, forward."Beyond the poetry, the king wanted to be highly recognizable to demonstrate his bravery and galvanize his troops, whose courage depended in part on the sovereign's physical presence on the battlefield. At Ivry, Henri IV didn't hesitate to put himself in harm's way, charging to the front of his cavalry, surrounded by the Grands, and finding himself in a furious melee. His physical courage is undeniable and astonishing, given that, since John the Good, the king is no longer at the head of his troops in battle. The necessities of civil war can also explain it.
In the confusion of battle, the plume is a rallying point, helping to regroup and avoid dispersion. This happened during the war of Ivry: Henri Pot de Rhodes, who was wearing the royal Cornette, was seriously wounded, and Henri IV's plume served as a sign, a point of attraction for the royal army. The white Cornette, a triangular flame, normally marks the presence of the king or his representative in battle. Following Henri IV's white plume, the cavalry made a victorious breakthrough. His order to "rally to my white plume" proved an effective means of controlling his squadrons.
Emblem of King Henri IV
A member of the Académie de Nérac, du Bartas was a lifelong servant of the court of Navarre and the future Henri IV. In his poem, he emphasizes the celebration of the victory of a truly Christian king, guaranteeing peace and cohesion in the face of the disorders represented by the League. The king's clemency on the battlefield is also a sign of his divine election. In this way, we can see that the qualities attributed to Henri IV by later centuries were established as early as the victory at Ivry.
In the Wars of Religion context, the white plume was an emblem that united both Catholics, who rallied to Henri IV because they considered him the legitimate sovereign, and Protestants, who supported their co-religionist. The former used the white French cross, the latter the white scarf. Henri IV, who also wore the white scarf, wore, along with the white plume, a badge uniquely linked to his person, embodying the union between Catholics and Protestants.
More precisely, it's because it's a badge with little meaning, apart from its aristocratic dimension, that the white plume can be chosen as an emblem. The white scarf, a Protestant symbol, became a badge attached to the person of Henri IV. However, its Protestant origin, following Henry IV's conversion to Catholicism, became a source of embarrassment. Royal narrators and propagandists therefore put more emphasis on the plume. The motifs of Henri IV's helmet and white plume were taken up as emblems attached to his person when Lyon submitted to the king's authority in 1594 or during royal entries into cities, as in Avignon in 1600.
The color white appears to be an instrument of national unification, particularly in the face of the red worn by the Spaniards. It was also an instrument in the process of sacred recharging of the royal person, through the heroization of Henri IV. Indeed, the white associated with the king symbolizes the Good.
Some ten years after the assassination of Henri IV, his widow, Marie de Médicis, commissioned Rubens to paint a series of pictures for the Galerie Médicis in the Palais du Luxembourg in Paris. One of them, included in the cycle of Henri IV's life, is dedicated to the battle of Ivry. Entitled Henri IV à la bataille d'Ivry (Henri IV at the Battle of Ivry), it shows the king in the middle of the fray, sword in hand and wearing his white plume, which already seemed inevitable in the iconographic representation of this battle.
"Rally to my white plume"
The birth of a formula
According to immediate accounts of the battle, Henri IV encouraged his troops before battle, speaking of honor, victory, and rallying. At the king's burial in 1610, the Franciscan Jacques Suarès delivered his funeral oration. In it, he recalls the battle of Ivry and describes Henri IV "putting a white plume in his headdress and saying to the nobility around him: here is this feather which will serve you today as a guidon, following which we will triumph over our enemies". In his Histoire universelle, written between 1595 and 1616 and published from 1616 to 1620, the Protestant writer Agrippa d'Aubigné, a former comrade-in-arms of Henri IV, gave a literary version of this speech, which became very famous:"Mes compagnons, Dieu est pour nous, voici ses ennemis et les nostres, voici vos Roi: à eux. If you miss your horns, go to my white plume, you'll find it on the road to victory and honor."An immaculate attribute prefiguring victory and the comforting word of the king is thus associated on the battlefield, while the feather continues to be a court ornament of prime importance.
In 1661, in his Histoire du roy Henri le Grand, Hardouin de Péréfixe, former preceptor to Louis XIV, added a decisive element to the phrase to establish the white plume in the long term: "You will always find it on the path to victory and honor", whereas the earliest accounts describe more of an occasional speech by Henri IV, focusing on the battle to come. This formula, like others, has the merit of effectively simplifying a complex situation.
Historian François Lavie points out that Péréfixe's book is the culmination of a practice of compiling the king's bon mots and formulas that began as early as the reign of Henri IV. According to Michel Magnien, a specialist in Renaissance literature, this work represents a turning point in the legend of Henri IV: from the image of an ideal Christian king, we move on to that of a gallant king who loves bon mots. Other elements such as the hen in the pot, were also established.
Formula and purpose In 1713, Jesuit Father Gabriel Daniel retained Péréfixe's addition, linked the two elements by describing the king pointing to the plume on his helmet, and slightly modified the meaning of the phrase: "Enfants, si les cornettes vous manquent [etc.] vous le trouver toujours [...]". The white plume is now referred to twice in the same formula, by word and gesture, while Henri IV is definitively assimilated as a father of the people.
In 1728, Voltaire published the highly successful La Henriade. It was part of a new movement devoted to different episodes in national history. In La Henriade, Voltaire adds another dimension to Henri IV's speech. By having him say: "You were born French, and I am your king / These are our enemies, march and follow me", he completely disguises the fact that the battle of Ivry was an episode in a civil war, pitting French against other French. It was in the 1770 edition that the event of the battle of Ivry was first depicted: the engraving, by Charles Eisen, shows a speech by the king before the battle, pointing to the enemy. Henri IV, wearing an extravagant plume, appears as the great man at the head of his troops. His gestures and rousing words make him a hero who personifies the destiny of France.
From the mid-18th century onwards, dictionaries such as L'Encyclopédie and the Dictionnaire de Trévoux mentioned the battle of Ivry in the article for the word "panache", which was not the case in the previous century. Beyond the word, the very purpose of the white plume can be found in Barnabé Farmian Durosoy's lyric drama Henri IV ou la Bataille d'Ivry, first performed at the Hôtel de Bourgogne theater in Paris in 1774: the Marquise presents it to the king before the battle. This scene is depicted on a printed armchair back by Jean-Baptiste André Gautier-Dagoty.