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The emblem continued to be included on buildings with royal associations in the
subsequent centuries. The Premonstratensian convent at Joyenval, enjoying the favor of the
royal family in the fifteenth century, received from Charles VII the right to display the French
coat of arms above the main entry of its church. 58 Similarly the Parisian convent of the
Chartreux, founded by St. Louis in 1257, included the royal arms above the central arcade of a
portico begun there in 1505. The heraldic emblem was placed within a shield and set against a
background covered with additional fleurs-de-lis, an arrangement that clearly recalled the royal
foundation (fig. 18). 59 By the sixteenth century the emblem had become a common feature on
royal châteaux: as a finial at Chambord, in sculptural reliefs at Blois, and depicted in the arms of
France on the façade of the west wing of the Louvre.
The fleur-de-lis, whether included as part of the royal arms or as an individual motif, was
an important signifier of the French monarchy. To the Gallic rulers, it represented God’s
preference for the kingdom of France and the privileged status of it leaders over any other earthly
ruler. The prestige conferred by the fleur-de-lis made it a symbol of the French king’s power.
Louis XIII’s decision to patronize the church of the Oratory and the ensuing placement of the
fleurs-de-lis on the building’s most prominent exterior feature was one way that the king visually
demonstrated the sovereignty of his rule and that of the French state.
Jacques Lemercier incorporated the fleur-de-lis into at least one other part of the
building—at the center of the groined vault over the interior crossing where it was visible to all.
The arrangement originally consisted of a square frame with protruding rectangular arms
surrounding a hollowed-out octagon (fig. 19). 60 The oculus, which has since been closed and
covered with a relief of a dove, opened to a campanile placed at the center of the roof, which is
visible on the Plan of Turgot. 61 In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the rectangular arms
surrounding the oculus ended in a single fleur-de-lis, but these were removed at some point, most
likely during the French Revolution. While the motif, which resembled a Greek cross with a
fleur-de-lis at the end of each arm, was certainly a reminder to all worshipers of Louis XIII’s
desire to assert his authority, its history derived from another privilege bestowed on the kingdom
of France.
The design, known as a croix fleurdelisée, originated in the thirteenth century with
reliquaries meant to commemorate the transfer of a relic of the True Cross to France during the
reign of Philip Augustus (1180-1223). 62 The oldest known example of such a cross reliquary is
60