In Vézelise, a stone’s throw from the covered market, a house gable is adorned with a curious fresco. A coat of arms, filled with eaglets, lions and fleur-de-lys, in strange colors and shapes, challenges the stroller. This coat of arms, in truth, is that worn by the Dukes of the province from the XVIth century. These are the “great weapons of Lorraine”. The “small arms” showing only the red strip charged with the three silver alerions on a field of gold.
So what do these great weapons show us? Nothing less than the calling card of our former masters. The territories they claimed. The alliances they had made. In chief, that is to say at the top of the shield, four coats of arms for the four kingdoms of which the Dukes of Lorraine considered themselves to be the heirs. These are, from left to right, the Kingdoms of Hungary, Sicily, Jerusalem and Aragon. At the tip, there are four other coats of arms, representing the four duchies on which our dukes had royal claims. These are the Duchies of Anjou, Gelderland, Juliers and Bar. At the heart of the shield are the historic arms of the ducal house of Lorraine : gold to the band of mouths loaded with three silver alerions.
These large weapons, definitively fixed under the reign of Duke Antoine (1508-1544) are traditionally surmounted by a ducal crown, from which comes an alerion holding a phylactery in its beak and on which we can read ” Priny! Priny! “, Reference to the castle of Prény and whose name served as a war cry for our dukes. The motto of the ducal house, contrary to what we often hear, is not “Who rubs himself gets stung” but ” Fecit potentiam in bracchio suo “, A sentence taken from the magnificat and which means” He placed power in his arm “. The famous “Who rubs there pricks himself” is, on the other hand, the motto of the city of Nancy, which flaunts, in addition, its coat of arms and in addition to the thistle, the great weapons of Lorraine.
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