Appearance
The banner was red or orange-red silk and flown from a gilded lance. According to legend, its colour stems from it being dipped in the blood of the recently-beheaded St. Denis.
The surviving descriptions of the Oriflamme are in Guillaume le Breton (thirteenth century), in the "Chronicle of Flanders" (fourteenth century), in the "Registra Delphinalia" (1456) and in the inventory of the treasury of St. Denis (1536). They show that the primitive Oriflamme was succeeded in the course of the centuries by newer Oriflammes which bore little resemblance to one another except for their colour.
Read more about this topic: Oriflamme
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“Most lovers ... picture to themselves, in their mistresses, a secret reality, beyond and different from what they see every day. They are in love with somebody else—their own invention. And sometimes there is a secret reality; and sometimes reality and appearance are the same. The discovery, in either case, is likely to cause a shock.”
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