"I do look now for a Spanish fig, or an Italian salad, daily;"

and in Shirley's "Brothers:"[501]

"I must poison him;
One fig sends him to Erebus;"

or it may, as Mr. Dyce remarks,[502] simply denote contempt or insult in
the sense already mentioned.

[500] Edited by Dyce, 1857, p. 30.

[501] Edited by Gifford and Dyce, vol. i. p. 231.

[502] "Glossary," p. 161.

_Flower-de-luce._ The common purple iris which adorns our gardens is now
generally agreed upon as the fleur-de-luce, a corruption of fleur de
Louis--being spelled either fleur-de-lys or fleur-de-lis. It derives its
name from Louis VII., King of France, who chose this flower as his
heraldic emblem when setting forth on his crusade to the Holy Land. It
had already been used by the other French kings, and by the emperors of
Constantinople; but it is still a matter of dispute among antiquarians
as to what it was originally intended to represent. Some say a flower,
some a toad, some a halbert-head. It is uncertain what plant is referred
to by Shakespeare when he alludes to the flower-de-luce in the following
passage[503] in "2 Henry VI." (v. 1), where the Duke of York says:

"A sceptre shall it have,--have I a soul,--
On which I'll toss the flower-de-luce of France."

[503] See "Winter's Tale," iv. 3; "Henry V.," v. 2; "1 Henry
VI.," i. 1.

In "1 Henry VI." (i. 2) Pucelle declares:

"I am prepared; here is my keen-edged sword,
Deck'd with five flower-de-luces on each side."

Some think the lily is meant, others the iris. For the lily theory, says
Mr. Ellacombe,[504] "there are the facts that Shakespeare calls it one
of the lilies, and that the other way of spelling is fleur-de-lys."

[504] "Plant-Lore of Shakespeare," p. 73.

Chaucer seems to connect it with the lily ("Canterbury Tales," Prol.
238):

"Her nekke was white as the flour-de-lis."

On the other hand, Spenser separates the lilies from the flower-de-luces
in his "Shepherd's Calendar;" and Ben Jonson mentions "rich carnations,
flower-de-luces, lilies."

The fleur-de-lis was not always confined to royalty as a badge. Thus, in
the square of La Pucelle, in Rouen, there is a statue of Jeanne D'Arc
with fleurs-de-lis sculptured upon it, and an inscription as follows:

"The maiden's sword protects the royal crown;
Beneath the maiden's sword the lilies safely blow."

St. Louis conferred upon the Chateaubriands the devic