Nobility and Heraldry
As king, Christophe created an elaborate Haïtian peerage (nobility) of his own design, originally consisting of four Princes, eight Dukes, 22 Counts, 40 Barons, and 14 Knights ("chevaliers"). Christophe founded a College of Arms to provide armorial bearings for the newly ennobled.
Europeans mocked his creation, and there the term "Haitian nobility" became a synonym for any improvised aristocracy created by a new government.
Read more about this topic: Henri Christophe
Famous quotes containing the word nobility:
“There may be as much nobility in being last as in being first, because the two positions are equally necessary in the world, the one to complement the other.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)