POSTAGE STAMPS
These
pages were originally published as part of Appendix E to The Civic Heraldry
of France.
The appendix remains, but here I have placed the images of the stamps.
The postage stamps of France contain many examples of coats of arms, of which the most numerous appear in the series of Provinces and Towns. I have listed them in alphabetical order.
It is interesting to note that the series of arms of provinces and towns began in 1941, when France was under occupation, and continued throughout the war.
The 1st and 2nd Series of Arms of Towns are depicted in monochrome; the rest are multi-coloured.
BORDEAUX, LILLE, LYON, MARSEILLE and TOULOUSE appear twice, in the 1st and 3rd Series. NANTES and NICE appear twice, in the 2nd and 3rd Series. PARIS appears twice, in the 2nd and 4th Series.
ALGER and ORAN are in Algeria, which formed part of France until 1962, and SAINT-DENIS is in Réunion, a département d'outre-mer.
Robert Louis, who was active in the field of design of communal arms from 1941-65, designed the stamps listed above from Ile-de-France, 1 May 1943, to Paris, January 1965. His daughter, Mireille Louis, herself an eminent designer of communal arms, was responsible for the design for Auch, the last stamp to appear in the series of Arms of the Towns, and which was issued in January 1966.
The numbers are those of the Stanley Gibbons catalogue.