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Imperial Letters Patent Granting Arms to the City of Agen, France 1812

Large-format manuscript imperial decree (lettres patentes) on vellum, issued in the name of Napoleon, granting and regulating the municipal coat of arms of the city of Agen. Signature Napoleon and Cambacérès.

Description

Large-format manuscript imperial decree (lettres patentes) on vellum, issued in the name of Napoleon, granting and regulating the municipal coat of arms of the city of Agen under the heraldic reforms of the First Empire. Signed by Napoleon & Cambacérès.

Provenance

City of Agen 1812 - ?

History & Context

Issued at the Palace of Saint-Cloud on 23 April 1812, these Imperial Letters Patent formally granted and confirmed the arms of the city of Agen under Napoleon I.
Municipal heraldry had been reorganised by Napoleon in 1809, when towns and cities throughout the Empire were permitted to petition for officially recognised arms. Agen was classified as a city of the second class and its new armorial bearings consequently incorporated the distinctive Imperial franc-quartier: a blue field charged with the gold letter N surmounted by a star.
The small painted shield attached to the document was not merely decorative. It formed part of the legal grant itself, visually defining the arms which the city was authorised to bear.
The document was issued in Napoleon’s name following consideration by the Conseil du sceau des titres, the body responsible for regulating titles and heraldry within the Empire. It bears the signatures of Napoleon at lower right and Jean-Jacques-Régis de Cambacérès, Prince Archchancellor of the Empire, at lower left.
Today it survives as a particularly evocative example of the way Napoleon extended the imagery and administrative structures of his new Imperial order into the civic identity of cities throughout France.

Marks & Inscriptions

Signatures of:
Napoleon
Cambaceres

Bibliography

Primary Source

Napoleon I, Lettres patentes portant concession d’armoiries à la ville d’Agen, Palace of Saint-Cloud, 23 April 1812. Original document, private collection.

Archival References

Archives nationales, France, CC//253, Agen (la ville d’), concession d’armoiries, 1812.

Archives nationales, France, BB/29/1081, Armorial des villes et d’une association, Volume 1, entry for Agen (Lot-et-Garonne), ville de 2e classe.

Archives nationales, France, Titres et armoiries du Premier Empire et période postérieure — records of the Conseil du sceau des titres and Imperial grants of titles and arms.