Despite the high cost of fabrics, thousands of flags are currently being made for the Olympic Games; It seems that there will be a lot of flaunting.

In a large workshop, we had to start the work again; we made a mistake about how to place the colors. The supervisor, for his excuse, is Polish. Besides, how many French people are there who do not know more about this subject? Especially since we have varied a lot since the Revolution.

It was after the storming of the Bastille that the national cockade was formed; we chose the blue and red colors of the City of Paris and added the white of royalty. This cockade was offered, in the large room of the Hôtel de Ville, by Bailly to Louis XVI on July 15, 1789. The flag was similar to the cockade: blue, white (in the middle) and red,

The following year, on October 24, 1790, a decree of the National Assembly decided that red would touch the pole, "white in the middle and blue floating in the air."

A decree of the Convention (29 Pluviôse year XI) decides that the colors will be arranged, starting from the pole: blue, white, red. Napoleon I flew this flag throughout Europe until February 20, 1811, when an imperial decree ordered: blue, red and white. Louis-Philippe resumed the order established by the Convention.

In 1848, we were in a bit of a hurry, and we made three members of the provisional government, Garnier-Pagès, Crémieux and Louis Blanc, sign a decree which reclassified the colors: blue, red and white. We thus believed we were returning to the colors of the first Republic.

The error was pointed out and, on March 5, another decree restored the previous order, the one that Louis-Philippe had respected. Against the first decree, which was a little hasty, revolutionary memory was first invoked, and also another consideration: "In foggy weather, especially at sea, the white merges with the clouds, and we only see two colors.

The Second Empire and the Third Republic changed nothing. The flag is as the Convention fixed it: blue, white and red.

These questions of color might seem childish if we did not know that, having wanted to suppress two of them, in 1873, the Count of Chambord did not ascend the throne; there was a strong majority in the Chamber for the king, but not for the white flag.

In The Wicker Mannequin, Mr. Anatole France portrays a character who is sorry because, according to him, the three colors are misplaced. “He finds that the blue, white and red are of an iniquitous violence; he would like a pink or lilac flag. Again, he said with melancholy, if the three colors started from the pole, like three flames from a banner, it would be bearable; but their perpendicular arrangement cuts the floating folds.

We will be allowed to have a completely different opinion from that of Mr. Bergeret.

JEAN-BERNARD.