THE FRENCH SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI

© Guy Stair Sainty

While neither a "noble" association nor an Order of Chivalry, the Society of the Cincinnati has something of the character of both. There are many organizations in the United States for which membership requires descent from an identifiable group of people (the "Colonial Dames", "Daughters of the Revolution", etc), but none of them share the two particularly unique features of this Society - having been found by a President of the United States (albeit before his election) and confirmed and approved by a foreign Monarch (Louis XVI of France). Similarly, while all the other associations requiring descent from a specifically identified and long dead group were founded relatively recently, the Society of the Cincinnati was founded by the actual group from which descent was required.

Representatives of the thirteen colonies declared their independence from Great Britain on 4 July 1776, beginning a bitter war which finally ended with the cessation of hostilities announced by General Washington on 19 April 1783. On 10 May 1783, gathered together in the Temple erected by his soldiers, Washington and his officers announced the foundation of a society of friends, composed of the American and French officers who had fought together in the cause of American independence. This society would be perpetuated by the senior male descendants of the founders or, failing that, by the descendants of the collateral branch which would be considered to represent the founder (statutes, article 2). The society was named in honor of Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus, who after a distinguished military career in the service of the Roman republic, had returned to civilian life.

The American Society continued to flourish, despite the attacks of Benjamin Franklin, who disapproved of the institution's hereditary character, which he disturbed him because he considered it to be a form of nobility. The society continues to elect a President-General, who serves for three years, and adopted a humanitarian mission which it has perpetuated to this day. However, the American Society was never approved by Congress although members were given some privileges by the States, and it never enjoyed any kind of official status. The right to membership continues to pass in the direct male line, failing that through a female heiress and failing that to the nearest collateral branch, although different State Societies each have variations of these rules. Any disputes as to whom is the present heir of an original member are settled by the President-General and admission is open to the representatives of officers who were not originally members of the Society. Its magnificent headquarters are situated in the Anderson House, a palatial mansion on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, DC, donated by a long time member of the Society.

Article 27 of the statutes provided that the President-General of the Society, in recognition of the generous assistance that the new nation had received from France, and wishing to perpetuate the ties of friendship between the officers of the allied armies, could grant membership therein and the insignia of the society, to the following: the admirals and captains of the French navy and the generals and colonels of the French expeditionary army who had served in the war. The Society was reorganized later in the year so that each of the thirteen states would have its own branch with the French making the fourteenth branch. By a decision of Louis XVI in Council dated 18 December 1783, French officers were given permission to accept membership of the society, whose French branch was put under his royal authority. The first meeting of the French branch was held on 19 January 1784 at the Hotel Rochambeau, following which the French elected Admiral the Comte d'Estaing as their president. On 4 July 1784, to celebrate the original declaration of independence, the French branch comprising about two hundred members (the American had two thousand members originally) held its first general-assembly at the Count d'Estaing's residence. With the extension of membership to all officers who had served in the French or continental armies, new admissions were made to the French society even after the abolition of the royal orders (from which decree the Cincinnati was exempt, as membership did not depend on proof of nobility). The last list of admissions was submitted to the king on January 1790 and approved by him on 3 February 1792. From that date until 1925 the French society was effectively dormant.

The most famous of the original members was Gilbert du Mottier, Marquis de la Fayette, to whose daughters descendants passed the right of membership of the Society (and, because of the special position Lafayette enjoyed, today there are six representatives for him). Apart from the Count d'Estaing and Jean-Baptiste de Vimeur, Count de Rochambeau, later Marshal of France (whose positions are both unrepresented today), the original membership included Colonel Duke William of Bavaria (represented today by Count Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec), Louis-Alexandre Berthier, future Marshal and Prince and Duke of Neufchatel and Prince of Wagram (represented by Charles-Louis, Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne Lauraguais), Lieutenant-General Louis, Duke of Crillon (represented by Charles-Emmanuel de Grammont-Crillon), Vice-Admiral Louis-Antoine de Bougainville (represented by François-Regis de Bronac de Bougainville), Vice-Admiral Guy-Simon de Coetnempren de Kersaint (represented by his direct descendant in the male line, Jacques de Coetnempren de Kersaint), General Adam de Custine, later guillotined for his monarchist sympathies (respresented by Xavier Piochard de la Bruslerie), Lieutenant-General the Duc de Damas (respresented by Count Guillaume de Vogue), Vice-Admiral Denis Decres, later Duke of Friuli (unrepresented), the five Dillon brothers headed by Colonel, future Lieutenant-General, Edouard (represented by his brother Theobald's descendant Edouard Dillon), Count Hans-Axel Fersen, friend of Queen Marie-Antoinette and Grand Marshal of Sweden (represented today by Count Gustav Gyldenstolphe Hamilton), General the Duke of Lauzun (represented today by his cadet François de Gontaut-Biron, Marquis de Saint Blancard), the future Marshal du Houx de Viomenil (unrepresented, but whose two brothers are both represented by collaterals), Charles de la Croix, Marquis of Castries, future Marshal of France and his son the future Lieutenant-General Armand, first Duke of Castries (represented by François, Count de Castries and Rene, Duke of Castries), Lieutenant-General the Duke of Laval (represented by the Marquis de Levis-Mirepoix, Duke of San Fernando Luis), Count Louis-Marie de Noailles (represented by his collateral descendant Philippe de Noailles, Duke of Mouchy, and by two honorary collaterals, Jacques de Caumont, Duke of la Force and François, Duke of Noailles), Rear-Admiral the Duke of Cadore (represented by the present Duke of Cadore), and Victurien, Vicomte de Mortemart (represented by the present Duke of Mortemart). Several families have three or four representatives because of the enthusiasm for the American cause that was taken up by groups of friends, all excited by the prospect for adventure. However, of the three hundred and fifty-six possible French members there are only a little over two hundred full members today and a handful of honorary members (including the late Prince Guy de Polignac, the former President Valery Giscard d'Estaing). The Count of Paris used to be a member but following the election of the late Duke of Anjou and Cadiz (as the senior representative of Louis XVI), he resigned in protest.

Unsuccessful attempts were made to revive the French branch during the reigns of both Louis XVIII and Charles X but these came to nothing as there was a reluctance to accept any institutions which did not depend entirely from the French Crown - thus only French Royal Orders and foreign state Orders could be accepted (with royal license) by French citizens from 1824 onwards. A more serious attempt to revive the Society in France was made on 1 July 1887, sanctioned by the General-Assembly held at Newport on 28 July 1887 (at which membership was extended to the male descendants of females when the original family was extinct in the male line), but again this was aborted. [1] On 4 July 1925 a group of nineteen descendants of the original members met together and elected Maurice, 6th Duke of Broglie, as president of the French Society which was declared "restored, reconstituted and recognized" by the executive committee of the American Society on 31 December 1925. The statutes were marginally amended so that descendants of both founder members and original honorary members could be represented by hereditary members, and new honorary members would not be hereditary (conforming to an 1854 decision of the American Society). Since 1974 the Vice-President of the whole Society has always been a Frenchman. The French hoped to obtain the same official recognition for their society that it had enjoyed in its early years, but there was opposition to recognizing a purely "hereditary" association. If the statutes had been altered, so that the structure (at least in respect of certain of the qualifications for membership) more closely approximated that of the Order of Malta, i.e. that candidates could not become members purely by right, it might have been recognized as an Order, but instead it enjoys the character of a private society dedicated to good works. The question of how the badge should be worn came up more recently, and in 1979 the Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor (subsequently elected an honorary member) agreed that its badge could be worn on the right breast on official occasions, separated from officially acknowledged Orders, and suspended from a knot instead of a ribbon.

The badge of the Society is an enameled eagle, perched on laurels and ensigned with an oval medallion in gold bearing the image of a sun rising above a laborer at his plow; this is surrounded by the motto "Omnia relinquit servare rempublicam" and, on the reverse, "Societas Cincinnatorum instituta Anno Domini 1783". The ribbon is sky blue with a white border. The badge of the President-General is a magnificent version of the Society's badge in diamonds, suspended from a diamond military trophy, that was presented by the Count d'Estaing to President Washington and designed by Major l'Enfant (who was responsible for the layout of the original city of Washington).

Footnotes

[1]See Arnaud Chaffanjon, Les Grands Ordres de Chevalerie, Paris 1977, p.385.