Source 1
Heraldic meaning of the coat of arms:
1) The three cock heads mean courage and perseverance. It may also refer to the male gender and or the most able in politics
2) Blue chevron is one of the basic geometric shapes in heraldry.
Description of the coat of arms:
"d'argent au chevron d'azur accompagné de trois têtes de coq arrachées barbées et créte et de gueules" (from the "Annuaire de la noblesse de France..." - 1870).
From the heraldic description of the arms of the Gaigneron family, it is now known if the cock heads should be all facing the right or the left. There appears to be some variance. In some cases, the two cock heads above face each other while the cock head below faces the left side (see below example).
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| Source 2 |
Drawing of the Coat of Arms from a "Faire Part"
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| Source 5 |
From Artwork
"Necessaire" in Ivory (Source
Combined Coat of Arms of Noble Houses Related by Marriage:
La Maison de Papin de L'Èpine
(1716 and 1795)
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| (Source 3) |
La Maison de
GRANT de LUXOLIÈRE de BELLUSSIERE
(1881 and 1882)
La Maison de
GONTAUT-BIRON
(1886)
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| (Source 4) |
La Maison de
HINOJOSA (Cáceres) y de OBARRIO (Galicia)
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| Source 7 |
Sources Consulted:
1) The black and white coat of arms of the Gaigneron family was photographed from the original printed in black and white in the book "Grand Armorial de France: Catalogue general des armoires de familles nobles de France" By Henri JOUGLA de MORENAS (Paris, 1934). The entire edition is available online. The edition we used for the blog comes from the library of Gonzaga University.
2) The arms of the Gaigneron was adopted to the crown of a count. The background image was taken from the public domain.
3) The combined arms of the Gaigneron and Papin was retrieved from the online archive of the National Library of France (BNF). The black and white image first appears in the work "Descendants des Pépins / [signé Nicolazo de Barmon]" by Louis-Marie-Antoine NICOLAZO de BARMON (Nates, 1873).
4) Another adaption made was to the arms of a Duke and Peer of France which first appeared on Wikipedia and belongs to the Public Domain. We added the arms of the Gaigneron and those of the Gontaut-Biron families to indicate the union of these to noble houses. The first design was attributed to "JIMMY44" on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listof_French_peerages#mediaviewer/File:Orn_ext_duc_et_pair_OSE.svg).
5) The hand-painted image of the blason of the Gaigneron Jollimon de Marolles family with the crown or cornet of "Counts" was taken from a "Faire part".
6) The image of the "Necessaire" in ivory was taken from the website "Interecheres" (https://www.interencheres.com). The ivory artwork dates from the 18th century and may have belonged to Jacques de Gaigneron de Marolles, the first Count de Marolles.
7) The coat of arms represents the marshaling of several lineages such as the de Hinojosa-Torres y Alvarado, Hidalgos de Cáceres (Spain), the de Obarrio, Hidalgos de Galicia (Spain), the de Gaigneron de Marolles and the de Philippy de Bucelly d'Estrées (Réal del Sarte) families. That coat of arms was design for the personal use of M.O.C.V. y R. by Don Fernando Martínez Larrañaga, Pontifical Knight.
