The Le Coigneux of the high dress of Paris to the armies of the king

Anyone reading the history of France in the 17th century cannot fail to come across the name of Le Coigneux. This family is one of the most prominent in Parisian high dress under the reign of Louis the royal army until the end of the Ancien Régime.

By Guillaume Cotinat, doctor in history

The most illustrious member of the family, Jacques Le Coigneux (1589-1651), began his career as an advisor in 1611, became president of one of the chambers of requests of the Court in 1616, then councilor of state and president of the chamber of accounts in 1619. In 1625, Cardinal Richelieu spoke to Louis XIII about this magistrate. He recognizes his qualities but is wary of him: “Mr. President Le Coigneux is a very clever man, but suspected of having been linked with Mr. Prince. It is a spirit capable of doing much good and evil. » The said prince of Condé says for his part that Le Coigneux is “a restless spirit, who never rests and is never content; that every day he proposes new designs.” Through skill, Jacques Le Coigneux managed to join the house of Gaston d'Orléans, Monsieur, brother of the king and heir to the throne until the birth of the future Louis XIV in 1638. He thus became, with Puylaurens, one of Gaston's two closest advisors, combining, alongside his position as president of the chamber of accounts, those of chancellor and keeper of the Seals of Monsieur in 1626, then superintendent of finances and head of the council in 1628. Gaston regularly sends him to the king or the cardinal to clear himself of his more or less admissible enterprises and continually formulate new demands.

In August 1627, Le Coigneux was given a commission as intendant of justice and finance for the army sent to lay siege to La Rochelle under the nominal command of Gaston d'Orléans. But Monsieur returns empty-handed to Paris when the arrival of his royal brother deprives him of such a beautiful role. Then, in July 1628, Le Coigneux played emissaries between Gaston and the king during the siege of the Protestant city. He was received by Richelieu and by Louis XIII, as reported in a letter addressed by the monarch to his brother Gaston: “My brother, I was very happy to see Mr. Le Coigneux, as I always will be to see all this which will come from you. He spoke to me frankly about what may concern your consent. I made it known to him as I desired, as much as you knew how, and that you would take part in the most secret affairs that could happen to me, and that I would always have great satisfaction in employing you on occasions that would be worthy of you. He will tell you more about everything that happened. »

Having become a widower, Monsieur has above all decided to enter into a new marriage, which is in total contradiction with the foreign policy of the king and the cardinal minister. Things get worse and Gaston runs away to Lorraine, then an enemy country of France, before returning and making amends.

The day after Dupes' Day (November 10, 1630), Louis XIII and the cardinal tried to mollify the versatile Gaston by showering blessings on his two main advisors: his chancellor Le Coigneux and his favorite Puylaurens. On December 20, 1630, Jacques Le Coigneux was accepted into the prestigious office, usually venal and very expensive, of the modern president of the parliament of Paris. The mortar presidents, nine in number at that time, were appointed for life and placed at the head of the Grand Chamber, the highest judicial institution in the kingdom. They are so-called about their headgear, a black velvet toque enhanced with gold braid. We even go so far as to show Le Coigneux the cardinal’s barrette. Pope Urban VIII also signed a brief to this effect on February 15, 1631. But Richelieu secretly opposed it, claiming that the second marriage of Jacques Le Coigneux made this promotion impossible.

Disgrace and exile

Entry into the house of Gaston d’Orléans is for Le Coigneux only a step in his quest for higher offices. The cardinal's hat not arriving, he pushes Monsieur into a new take of arms. In the spring of 1631, Gaston fled to Burgundy. On March 30, the king had a declaration recorded by the parliament of Dijon condemning his brother's attitude, declaring him guilty of lèse-majesté and condemning to death all those who accompanied him. Gaston crosses Spanish Franche-Comté and takes refuge in Nancy, at the court of the Duke of Lorraine. In December, Théophraste Renaudot’s La Gazette reported on this crazy adventure: “Monsieur left here to go to Remiremont, and from there to Besançon. All his troops disband, and it is said that they are going to surrender to those of his Most Christian Majesty. His court is also divided into two parties, one of which is for the Sieur Le Cogneux, and the other for the Sieur de Puylorans, which do not fit together very well. » Monsieur responds by making public an outrageous manifesto which he entrusted to Le Coigneux to write. He violently attacks this “inhuman and perverse” Richelieu, denouncing the “abominable crimes” of this “formidable tyrant”.

Pushing the revolt to the end, Gaston secretly marries the sister of the Duke of Lorraine and moves to the Spanish Netherlands. There he finds his mother, who has been living in exile in Brussels since the Day of the Dupes, and together they begin to plot plots against France with the help of Madrid. However, Le Coigneux was opposed to the Lorraine marriage, and even more so, to an alliance with Spain. Victim of court intrigues, he finally fell into disgrace in January 1632. Rejected by everyone, he was sacrificed on the altar of reconciliation between Monsieur and his brother. Not only is he one of the few not to benefit from the amnesty granted to Gaston's supporters but, moreover, he is made to take on the role of scapegoat. He is the only one of the rebels to see his name mentioned in the royal letters of April 1633.

Jacques Le Coigneux took refuge in Flanders and joined the entourage of Marie de Medici in Brussels, then at the English court. In 1640, at the Palace of Saint-James, he remarried for a third time, to a lady-in-waiting of the Queen Mother, Éléonore de Chaumont. The following year, he acted as an intermediary between the Prince of Orange and Marie de Medici to prepare for her return to the continent. He was notably responsible for reading a speech before the States General of Holland. In July 1642, a few days after the death in Cologne of Marie de Medici, Le Coigneux was in The Hague to place a power of attorney to obtain the “some ring and something special” bequeathed by his protector. It was then that the death of Richelieu, on December 4, 1642, allowed him to hope for his return to France after ten years of exile. On December 27, he wrote a letter to the king to request his pardon, but it was only after the death of Louis XIII, on May 14, 1643, that the regent finally authorized him to return.

At the head of the parliamentary Fronde

Upon his arrival in Paris, Le Coigneux went to Gaston d'Orléans but he refused to reinstate him in his house. The intercession of Monsieur with the regent, however, allowed Jacques Le Coigneux to obtain reinstatement in all his property and in the office of president in mortar on June 7, 1643. His legal knowledge, his eloquence, and his talent for intrigue allow him to regain great influence in Parliament quite quickly – because he has the art of untangling the most complicated problems. He is so imbued with justice, says Mazarin, that he is angry at not being able to condemn both parties!

In 1646, Jacques Le Coigneux managed to obtain the survival of his office of president in favor of his eldest son; more precisely, he sold his office to him while reserving the use of it for ten years. Another striking proof of his rehabilitation: his daughter Geneviève, from her second marriage, married the same year the son of the Superintendent of Finance, Particelli d'Émery, with a marriage contract signed by the regent and Mazarin themselves.

Furthermore, the two daughters he had from his first marriage, Madeleine and Anne, were subsequently named abbesses of two Breton convents, one of that of Notre-Dame de la Joie of Hennebont in 1648, the the other of that of Notre-Dame de Kerlot in 1657.

These marks of benefit did not, however, prevent Le Coigneux from opposing the regent and Mazarin. In August 1647, during a debate on the competence of the Court of Aid, he delivered a speech whose ideological content announced the Fronde, since he intended nothing less than Parliament - a simple organ of justice and registration of royal acts – a chamber capable of controlling the monarchy and participating in legislative power through the vote on taxes. It is therefore quite logical that we find him among the main leaders and theorists of the parliamentary revolt that broke out the following year. The lawyer Omer Talon reports that, on August 1, 1648, “the speech of Mr. President Le Coigneux offended the ministers; he visited, to justify himself, Cardinal Mazarin, who asked him if he had intended to put himself at the head of the gentlemen of the investigations, and to become party leader; that it was the means of finding the same side which he had formerly made, and of falling into the same disgrace”! During the Barricades Day, August 26, it was he who, with the first president Molé and the mortar president de Mesmes, was at the head of the hundred magistrates pushed by the crowd to go to the Palais-Royal to ask the release of Councilor Brussel.

When the court left the capital to take refuge in Saint-Germain-en-Laye on January 6, 1649, Le Coigneux was one of the ultras in Parliament who banned Cardinal Mazarin as a “disturber of public peace,” an “enemy of the King and the State,” giving him eight days to leave the kingdom. It is to him that we attribute, with Broussel and Longueuil, the Very humble remonstrance of Parliament to the King and the Queen Regent, against Cardinal Mazarin on January 21, 1649. At the beginning of February, he was even chosen to chair a council dispatches instituted by Parliament as a sort of rebel government. He then gravitated more or less in the entourage of the coadjutor of the Archbishop of Paris, Jean-François Paul de Gondi, future Cardinal de Retz. Said Gondi describes Le Coigneux as a “madman” but recognizes him as having “a lot of wits”, notably the fact of having “more knowledge of the world than the other [parliamentarians]”. He judges him as “lively and penetrating” and fears his trickery, giving him the nickname Master Gonin, the name of a famous trick maker of the time.

Having become cautious, Le Coigneux refused to follow the devout party, in particular when it came to seeking help from Spain to free Paris from the blockade imposed on it by the royal army under the orders of the Grand Condé (January- March 1649). He was responsible for negotiating a solution to the crisis and was one of the signatories of the Peace of Rueil on March 11, 1649. However, a new event reshuffled the cards: the arrest and imprisonment of a Condé steeped in pride in January 1650. The regent and Mazarin now needed to ensure the support of Parliament against the supporters of Monsieur le Prince. It was then that, as the price of his rallying, Jacques Le Coigneux obtained the lands of Belabre, Ajoux, Châtelier-Guillebaud, Luzeraise, and Liglet – located on the borders of Berry and Poitou and acquired in July 1648 by lineage withdrawal in favor of his wife – was erected into a marquisate by letters patent signed by Louis XIV in February 1650 and registered by Parliament in July of the same year.

Jacques Le Coigneux continued to display his hostility towards Mazarin for a while. Thus, on December 30, he demanded the release of the princes – of Condé, of Conti, and Longueville – in a long speech on the laws, during which he demonstrated that “the kings are obliged to observe them as well as their subjects, with this difference nevertheless that people must observe them by natural obligation, and kings by the due of their conscience, and by love, as fathers do towards their children.” Parliamentary Fronde and Fronde des princes are now united in their hatred of Mazarin. Le Coigneux probably then entertained some hope of accessing the ministry.

In reality, the brand-new Marquis de Belabre plays an ambiguous game as usual. He officially continued to loathe Mazarin but secretly supported the royal power against the exorbitant claims of a Condé released from prison. What better proof of his loyalty to the monarchy than this sentence appearing in a letter addressed by Mazarin, from his exile in Brühl to his collaborator Hugues de Lionne on July 4, 1651: “I believe that you do not forget to advise the queen to flatter and caress President Le Coigneux and his children since they serve well and are capable of doing it always better”? Jacques Le Coigneux finally died on the following August 21, three weeks before the proclamation of Louis XIV's majority, and just before Condé launched the final episode of the Fronde. He was buried the next day in the family vault in the church of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois.

On his return to France, Jacques Le Coigneux moved back into his home in Saint-Cloud where once, in 1627, Monsieur came to retire to mourn the death of his first wife. Then, in the years 1645-1647, he had a private mansion built in the countryside, in the Grenelle plain. Although it was not to the taste of Tallemant des Réaux or Bernini, this mansion does not lack allure, as shown in an engraving by Israel Silvestre. This building is one of the first aristocratic residences in the Faubourg Saint-Germain and subsequently became the Hôtel de Navailles then de Villars, the current town hall of the 7th arrondissement. Around the same time, Le Coigneux – or his widow – decided to demolish the old feudal castle on their land of Belabre to replace it with a residence of a similar style.

Jacques Le Coigneux Fils, also president of mortar

Jacques Le Coigneux has a son from each of his three marriages. The eldest, also named Jacques (1613-1686), advisor in 1644 and president of one of the chambers of requests in 1648, succeeded his father in the office of mortar president in 1651. He was involved in the last upheavals of the Fronde, notably when Condé, pursued by Turenne's royal army, took refuge in the capital with his troops and reigned terror there. On June 25, 1652, Condé wanted to force Parliament to sign a union treaty with him. The magistrates refused, violence broke out and several of them, including Jacques Le Coigneux fils, narrowly escaped the assassins' blades. The following August, he was one of the main magistrates brought together by the king in Pontoise to form a semblance of a loyalist parliament capable of opposing that of the capital then in the hands of the supporters of Gaston and Condé. Like his colleagues, he bore the brunt of numerous pamphlets ridiculing the burlesque parliament of Ponthoise.

On October 21, 1652, the Fronde ended, and the young Louis XIV returned to Paris. Jacques Le Coigneux has remained loyal to the king since his elevation to the office of mortar president. The regent and Mazarin have nothing to complain about him. In 1654, he obtained the land of Montmélian, acquired two years earlier near Senlis, to be established as a marquisate. Although second president in order of seniority, Jacques Le Coigneux has neither the stature nor the intelligence of his father. A secret note from 1663 paints an unflattering portrait. He is described as a “violent man, proud and affecting justice to seek credit, and nevertheless, little liked by the bar, for some bad treatment he gave to lawyers; applies little to letters, enjoys his interests and his entertainment; is light. […] Is a friend of Mr. de Turenne.” He died without issue on April 24, 1686, after incredible domestic quarrels that Tallemant des Réaux liked to narrate in his Historiettes.

François Le Coigneux, known as Bachaumont

The second son of Jacques Le Coigneux, François (1624-1702), sieur de Bachaumont, clerk-prosecutor in the parliament of Paris, stood out from the start of the troubles of 1648 by baptizing the rising revolt with Fronde; according to some, by asserting that the rebels are like schoolchildren playing slingshots and scattering when they approach police officers only to start again as soon as their backs are turned; and, according to others, by proclaiming that he will upset his father's opinion. In any case, he got involved in mazarinades and, in December 1650, we see him supporting his father in requesting the judgment of the princes, knowing well that Parliament would not fail to have them released.

After the troubles, he became a state councilor and then finally abandoned the robe to devote himself to pleasures and letters, for example inviting Molière's troupe to come and play Les Précieuses ridicules and Sganarelle at his home on February 4, 1663. A few years later early, in 1656, he undertook a trip to the South of France with his friend Chapelle, stopping off with Gaston d'Orléans at the Château de Blois. The burlesque story they derived from it enjoyed a certain success under the title Voyage de Chapelle et Bachaumont (1663). He married Monique Passart, widow of Courcelles, and instilled a taste for letters in her daughter, the future Madame de Lambert (1647-1733), who also had a certain literary talent and became famous by holding the most famous salon of the Age of Enlightenment.

In a short biographical note from the beginning of the 18th century, we can read that President Le Coigneux “said of his son Bachaumont, who was a twin: “My son is only half a man, and nevertheless he wants to act like a whole man.” This is because Bachaumont in his youth drank like a Templar, although he had a weak and delicate constitution. He died at the end of 1702, aged 78: a great age for a man who had indulged in many excesses. Returning to religion towards the end of his life, he replied to those who were surprised by this change that “an honest man must live at the door of the church, and die in the sacristy”.

Gabriel Le Coigneux and the lineage of the Marquis de Belabre

On the death of President Le Coigneux père, the title of Marquis de Belabre passed to Gabriel Le Coigneux (1646-1709), the son he had with Éléonore de Chaumont, his third wife through whom he acquired the land of Belabre. As he was only five years old, he was placed under the guardianship of the eldest of the siblings, Jacques Le Coigneux fils, thirty-three years older than him and their father's successor in the office of president. to mortar. Gabriel also entered the magistracy, as advisor in 1673 and master of requests in 1680. On the death of his half-brother Jacques in 1686, he rushed to Versailles but was unable to succeed him in the office of president at Mortar. , as reported by the Marquis de Sourches: “Towards the end of April died, in Paris, Mr. Le Coigneux, president of the mortar, who had carried out his office throughout his life with great firmness and integrity at to serve justice. He had for a long time made all his efforts to ensure that M. de Belabre, his brother, who was master of requests and who had merit, was given survival; but the king did not think it appropriate to grant him this grace; and, when he came to throw himself at his feet after the death of the president, he was no happier, although the king treated him with great honesty. » Gabriel then sold his position as master of requests and retired to his land of Belabre. The family was now less visible at court, especially since his sister Polyxène, Marquise de Vibraye, was suspected of Jansenism. He spent the last twenty-three years of his life building a vast park with an orangery around the new Belabre castle. In addition to the marquisate of Belabre, Gabriel Le Coigneux also owned the baronies of Oléron and Bignay-Cluzeau in Aunis, inherited by his mother from Chaumont. That of Roche-Turpin in Vendômois seized in 1673 for the benefit of Bachaumont who passed it on to his younger brother in 1701.

From the dress to the sword

Jacques Le Coigneux (1683-1728), the third Marquis of Belabre, was the first to abandon the magistracy to embrace a career in arms. He served as a cavalry captain and managed to acquire, from 1705, his regiment of dragoons and to become maestre de camp, as recounted by the Marquis de Dangeau: "The son of M. de Belabre, who is captain of the cavalry in [the regiment of] Béringhen and who had treated with Mr. de Broglio of the King's regiment, having broken his treaty on some conditions which they did not agree on, bought that of the dragoons of Senneterre, for which he gave 100,000 francs. » As is customary, the Senneterre regiment was renamed after its new owner and became the Belabre regiment. Jacques Le Coigneux fought in Italy, in Flanders, and was among the notable prisoners taken by Prince Eugène and the Duke of Marlborough at the Battle of Oudenarde, on July 11, 1708. Once released, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier of the king's armies and ended the war on the Rhine. He remained the owner of his regiment for eighteen years and sold it in 1723, half-ruined.

His two brothers followed him into a military career. The first, Gabriel, Baron de la Roche-Turpin (1687-1741), also became maestre de camp of his regiment – ​​the Le Coigneux dragoons regiment – ​​then brigadier of the king's armies, and his son, Cornette of light horse of the king's guard, was killed at the battle of Dettingen in 1743. The second, Gabriel Louis, known as the Chevalier de Belabre (1694-1767), served alongside his brother in the Belabre regiment. The Marquis de Dangeau reports an incident that occurred at court on May 2, 1720: “A coachman of the Chevalier de Belabre, who had finished killing one of the archers in the fight that happened the day before yesterday, was put in prison; they put him on trial, and it is believed that he will be hanged. Mr. de Belabre spoke about it somewhat strongly to Mr. le duc d'Orléans [the Regent] and even more strongly to Mr. le Blanc [Secretary of State for War] and Mr. d'Argenson, lieutenant general from police; it was not well received. It is even said that he has a letter of cachet to go to his regiment. »

Louis Jacques Le Coigneux (1715-1789), the fourth Marquis of Belabre, was also born in the private mansion that the family-owned in the Marais district. He received as godfather the son of Marshal de Villeroy and as godmother his maternal aunt Marie-Anne Varice de Vallière, known to have been portrayed in Pomona by Hyacinthe Rigaud. In 1731, Louis Jacques became captain of Nicolaï's dragoon regiment, the former Belabre regiment and future 20th dragoon regiment. He probably fought in Italy during the War of the Polish Succession, from 1733 to 1738, and on the Rhine during the War of the Austrian Succession, from 1740 to 1748. He then retired to his lands in Belabre and died the day before of the Revolution.

In the revolutionary turmoil

The fourth Marquis de Belabre leaves three sons. The youngest, Denis Jacques (1754-1790), known as Abbot Le Coigneux, returned to the judiciary by becoming a clerical advisor to the Parliament of Paris. He is one of the parliamentarians who practiced, in the last years of the Ancien Régime, systematic obstruction of the reform projects presented by the various ministries Calonne, Loménie de Brienne, and Necker. His many detractors give him the nickname General Jacot. Madame de Chastenay explains in her memoirs: “I saw Abbé Le Coigneux, advisor to the Grand’chambre, ardent provocateur of daring measures, celebrated like a hero in the greatest houses. He was hunchbacked like Aesop; the courtiers of the ministry called him General Jacquot, from the name of a then-famous monkey: he was all the more glorious for it. » At the beginning of 1789, he attacked Necker in a pamphlet entitled The Prestige destroyed, or La Crédulité disabusée, but failed to be elected deputy of the clergy to the Estates General.

His two eldest children, Jacques Louis Guy (1751-1813), fifth Marquis de Belabre, squadron leader and lieutenant of the Marshals of France at Montmorillon, and Jean Jacques (1753-1805), known as the Chevalier de Belabre, joined the ranks of emigrated in September 1791 and took part in the 1792 campaign within the Princes' army. The land of Belabre was then seized and sold as national property. The two brothers wandered through the Austrian Netherlands, the United Provinces, and Germany, then took refuge in England before returning to France in 1801 and 1802.

Born in emigration, the sixth marquis, Jacques Gabriel (1792-1840), was raised until the age of nineteen in Russia under the tutelage of his great-uncle, the Count of Briou. He became an ensign in the imperial navy, but the deterioration of relations between France and Russia led his father to call him back in 1811. He joined Napoleon's cabinet thanks to his perfect knowledge of the Russian language - which he would be greatly needed given the coming war – and took part in the Russian campaign as one of five interpreters, an “extraordinary translator of Russian”. He then obtained a position as attaché at the Ministry of External Relations, but the imminent fall of the Empire pushed him to resign at the beginning of 1814 and to get closer to royalist circles to prepare for his rallying to a more liberal regime. in line with family tradition. In 1816, he managed to buy back the home of his ancestors and endeavored to restore some of its former glory. Two generations of Marquis de Belabre followed one another, then the estate was dismantled and the castle demolished under special conditions by the widow of the last Marquis, at the end of the 1920s.

A family recently ennobled by charges in the magistracy

The first known member of the family, Guillaume Le Coigneux, was a pewter potter and bourgeois merchant from Paris who died in 1505 and was buried in the Innocents cemetery. His son Gilles, who died in 1568 and was buried in the church of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, was the first to join the judiciary by becoming a prosecutor in the Parliament of Paris. Then he began to join the nobility by acquiring the lordships of Lierville and Bachaumont in Picardy. The true entry into the nobility of the family takes place in the next generation, through the purchase of offices conferring the noble status on its holder and his descendants after a certain number of years of exercise. Gilles' eldest son, Antoine (1550-1609), lord of Lierville and Bachaumont, became ordinary master in the chamber of accounts, and the youngest, Jacques (c. 1557-1623), lord of Sandricourt (in Picardy), married to a daughter of the chancellor of Montholon, advisor in the Grand Chamber. The younger branch, from Sandricourt and Bézonville, then provided other magistrates, before dying out around the middle of the 18th century: René, advisor-clerk to the parliament of Rouen, and Édouard, advisor to the parliament of Paris. The said Édouard has two sons: Jean, lieutenant in the Guards regiment, and Jacques, advisor to the parliament of Rouen; the latter's son, Charles, is an advisor at Châtelet. From the eldest branch, from Lierville and Bachaumont, come the best-known members of the family who constitute the subject of this article: President Jacques Le Coigneux father and son, and the line of Marquis de Belabre. This died out with the death of the eighth and last marquis, in 1891.

President Le Coigneux after Tallemant des Réaux

In his famous Historiettes, Tallemant des Réaux insists on the original character of the character. The memoirist calls him “Le Cogneux”, probably according to the pronunciation of the time, a way of pointing out his obscure origin by claiming that this name comes from a great-grandfather who was a tin potter “because he was constantly knocking”. Then, with his usual slander, he describes him as “a rather extraordinary man” having “a bit of the appearance of a tooth puller”! And to relate the following anecdote: “He felt the urge in Brussels, being angry with his people, to try if we could not live without servants. He gave leave to all his servants for three months, went to a room by himself, made his bed, went to the market, and put his pot on the fire; but he soon grew tired of it. » Then, about the Le Coigneux hotel: “He loved parties like a schoolboy, and was quite tired of his job as president. Having worked in a short period, he went to build a large house at the end of Pré-aux-Clercs to have a large garden in which to walk, as he had been ordered to breathe the air at his ease. At this building, we will see that there is something wrong in his head. People said laughing: “Isn’t he right? Because there is such a long journey from Paris to Saint-Cloud that you have to rest well on the way.” For him, he said: “I only have to deal with two kinds of people, litigants, who will come and look for me wherever I am: isn’t that a great discretion? and to my friends, who would go much further to see me.” One day when Ruvigny was dining at his house, he pulled him to the window and said to him: “You wouldn’t believe how prone I am to dizziness!” »

The coat of arms and livery of Le Coigneux

The coat of arms of the Le Coigneux family is azure with three golden porcupines placed – two at the top and one below. In the case of a family ennobled by legal positions, the formidable peaks of the mammal certainly symbolize the inflexibility and incorruptibility of the magistrate. The carriage horses of the House of Belabre have a black coat, and the servants' livery is scarlet with silver braid, collar, cuffs, and black pockets. Colors that refer directly to the mortarboard presidential outfit worn by the first Marquis de Belabre: scarlet dress and ermine coat – ermine being traditionally recalled by the silver braid.