Last modified: 2006-10-28 by marc pasquin
Keywords: book | 20 000 leagues under the sea | 20 000 lieues sous les mers | nemo |
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Eugene Ipavec. |
Eugene Ipavec. |
Eugene Ipavec. |
"Ant". |
António Martins-Tuválkin. |
The flag flown by Captain
Nemo in the book "20 000 lieues sous les mers" (Jules Verne) is described thusly: "...Captain Nemo unfurled a black banner, bearing an N in gold embroidered on its quartered bunting."
Ron Miller , 10 april 2002
In honor of the book (I actually wore out a copy when I was 8), here is
an image, though the description is a tad unclear--quartered how,
crosswise or diagonally? With what? And where's the N supposed to
go--the center or in one of the quadrants? The lack of
detail provided may mean that the flag cannot be reconstructed.
Eugene Ipavec , 10 may 2005
In honor of the book (I actually wore out a copy when I was 8), here is
an image, though the description is a tad unclear--quartered how,
crosswise or diagonally? With what? And where's the N supposed to
go--the center or in one of the quadrants? The lack of
detail provided may mean that the flag cannot be reconstructed.
Eugene Ipavec , 10 may 2005
here is a contemporary illustration from an early edition of 20,000
Leagues Under the Sea. The picture is smallish, but can be mostly made
out: a black flag, no visible quartering, a smallish 'N'--eerily similar
to the font I chose at random, by the way--and above it, something. I also note that the flag in the illustration seems narrower than 2:3.
Not quite in keeping with the book's
description, but it does have seniority...
Eugene Ipavec , 14 may 2005
Examining the high-resolution enlargement of the engraving, it looks to me like a sketchy sort of escutcheon above the "N". One has to wonder if the idea wasn't suggested to Verne and the illustrator by Napoleon Bonaparte's familir cipher. That "N" appear on French military guidons and flags of the period, although with Nap's characteristic wreath in virtually every example I found in Wise & Rosignoli's "Flags of the Napoleonic Wars" (London: 1978, Osprey).
William Dunning, 14 may 2005
I could be mistaken but I think the thing could be some form of anchor.
would make sense.
Marc Pasquin, 14 may 2005
I'll go along with the anchor interpretation. The engraving is simply not detailed enough to make it clear, but the wider part at the top of the enlargement makes it quite probable that Marc is right. Since the capitaine is not here to explain, I think that's where we'll have to leave it.
William Dunning, 15 may 2005
It looks a bit like a quartered CoA shield OSLT... The whole thing looks
quite napoleonic, by the way... :-\
The book *text*, in my own opinion, does have seniority over any depiction, even one
from the original editition (unless the illustrator were Jules Verne
himself, which is not the case, though.)
António Martins-Tuválkin, 15 may 2005
It looks far more like an escutcheon if you open up the large version
of the file.
James Dignan, 16 may 2005
Something against the presence of a coat of arm is that "Nemo" had relinquished his princely title and become an
anonymous rover of the seas. In the book, a related personal mark (the
words MOBILIS IN MOBILE surrounding a letter 'N') does not contain
anything else which might indicate noble descent.
I remember some engravings from the original edition (faithfully
reproduced in various other-language reprints) showing the 'N' very
clearly - but nothing else.
Note: the 'N' in said engravings is rather thin! (But I haven't been
able to find such image on the web.)
Jan Mertens, 16 may 2005
Actually, it does look like an escutcheon. I should have taken a look at the 400 kb version
first. There seems to be a shield with a squarish shape inside, and
an arch or cap-like thing above it all.
Eugene Ipavec , 16 may 2005
I don't say it's not in the image but there shouldn't be one! Nemo
is 'nobody' [ed. note: thats the meaning of his name], someone who has renounced his ties to any nation or title:
Verne is clear on this.
Another line of pursuit is to look up the original 'authorized' engravings -
only showing the 'N', I'm sure.
Jan Mertens , 18 may 2005
If you look at this image taken from this page, The 'N' is shifted towards the canton. And the flag reference is at the end of this chapter (no. 14 of part II):
"So saying, Captain Nemo unfurled a black flag bearing a gold "N" on its quartered bunting."This Gutenberg e-text (original French - but I don't have the book and can't check now) says:
"Et ce disant, le capitaine Nemo déploya un pavillon noir, portant un N d'or écartéle sur son étamine."So the 'N' is "quartered upon the cloth"! and this seems to mean 'spread out' on it (no dictionary I consulted confirmed this opinion of mine however).
I'd agree with having the "N" in the upper fly. I think Verne may have been confusing "écartéle" (old Fr. "escartelé"
or "esquartelé"), "quarterly", with (old Fr.) "ou quartier", meaning
"on the canton" or "in the dexter chief".
You could render this without using an "N" glyph, but with two pales
and a bend, as I did here.
"Ant" , 19 may 2005
On the other hand, he could have meant it in the sense of "stretched to
occupy most of the space".
Marc Pasquin , 19 may 2005
Is that a meaning of "écartéle"? It's certainly not a meaning of
"quarterly"!
"Ant" , 20 may 2005
Ethymologicaly, écarteler means "torn into four part" and as such was
the french word used for the sentence known in english as "drawn and
quartered" and the blason term for a field cut into four parts. By
analogy, it came also to mean stretch by all (four) sides.
Like a discussion made about Tolkien, it is possible that Jules verne
was either being poetic or didn't know much about heraldry in the first
place.
Marc Pasquin , 20 may 2005
Jules Verne having confused "écartéle" with "au quartier" is a very plausible hypothesis.
In old French, "esquarterer" means to divide into quarters; the modern
sense of "écarteler" is to divide into four ("quatre") parts, that is
"to quarter". Heraldry and torture use the same word, either in French
or English.
In French heraldry, a "quartier" is one of the four parts of a
quartered shield, or one of the parts of a shield divided in more than
four pieces. When the quarter covers one fourth of the shield or is
placed in an angle, it is called "franc-quartier". "franc" means here
free and not Frankish.
Ivan Sache , 20 may 2005