Although one holds up it with pride as soon as the opportunity arises, a very small number of individuals knows the origins of the Québécois flag. It should first of all be known that the flower of lily forms part of the inheritance of several people. Already 3000 years ago, it decorated grinds fabrics found in India, in Egypt, in Greece and Gaule. Certain heraldists believe that the flower of lily is probably a flower of broom or lotus; others claim that it is acted in fact of a stylized representation of the male genital apparatus! Of aucuns get along now for saying that the flower of lily is a flower of iris, flower which one found in abundance with the accesses of the Lily, a Belgian river.

Gradually, the flower of lily is used as royal symbol as of the year 1000. Louis VII (1137-1180) was the first to introduce the lily on the French royal banners. It was however necessary to wait a little later so that the lily becomes the "flower of the king".
With the Middle Ages, it was impossible to recognize the soldiers under their imposing implements of war. This is why each lord was to obtain an emblem and to make it engrave on the blazon of his riders and infantrymen. King Philippe Auguste then decided to choose the flower of lily, which consequently became the royal flower.

Three centuries later, that is to say on July 24, 1534, Jacques Cartier planted a cross with Gaspé. If the history of the cross is well known to us, one too often omits to mention that this cross was surmounted by one ecu where three flowers of lily symbolizing appeared the king of France. However, the French ships rather raised a square house blue or red, without flower of lily and decorated of a white cross. Then about 1755, when 4500 French soldiers are dispatched in Louisbourg and Quebec, the flags become multicoloured. Certain regiments use the yellow and the green on their houses, whereas others choose the mauve, the black or the brown one. Unfortunately, the English conquest marks the end of the flags and houses French in News-France.

Between 1763 and 1832, the British Union Jack floats everywhere in the "province of Quebec". It 1832 that one sees for the first time the green Tricolour, white and red is made famous for the rebellions of 1837-1838. Adopted by the St-Jean-Baptist Company of Montreal, the tricolour one gains the popular favour and one finds it soon in all the political demonstrations. This "Canadian" flag floats during the combat of Saint-Denis, Saint-Charles and Saint-Eustache. It is besides what carries out to its abandonment, a few years later: one gives a revolutionary character on this flag.

It is on June 24 1848 which one saw for the first time the direct ancestor of the Québécois flag. The flowers of lily, absent of the flags for one century, had been reproduced on the four corners of an enormous banner dating from the battle of Chime. It is Louis-in-Gonzague Baillargé, a lawyer of Quebec, which deployed this relic at the time of the procession of the St-Jean-Baptist of 1848. The "banner of Chime" was in fact the blazon of the marquis de Beauharnois, governor general of 1726 to 1747.

After Baillargé had arranged its banner, it is tricolour French who became the most popular flag in Quebec. The Crimean War, which linked France and England against Russia, pushed the english-speaking of Quebec to be made float the French flag at the sides of the Union Jack.

(Union Jack flag of the United Kingdom created into 1603)

It will however be necessary to still wait a half-century to see the first truly Québécois flag. One owes it in Elphège Filiatrault, priest of Saint-Jude, who made itself a flag that it calls the "Crowned-Cur Chime". This flag resembles the current Québécois flag, with the difference that a Sacred Heart appears there in full center and that the four flowers of lily point towards the center. Thus, between 1903 and 1948, this flag will float a little everywhere in Quebec while undergoing light transformations (beaver replacing the Sacred Heart).

Whereas the St-Jean-Baptist Company of Montreal carries out a national campaign, between 1939 and 1947, to make adopt fleurdelized, the Canadian Parliament adopts, in 1945, a modified version of Red Ensign of the British navy. This choice, disputed in Quebec, pushes the independent deputy Rene Chaloult to ask for the adoption of a "truly Québécois flag". Duplessis then suggested in Chaloult placing a beaver or a sheet of maple in the medium of fleurdelized. Chaloult, after having consulted the abbot Lionel Groulx, proposed in Duplessis anything to put at the center and to rectify the four flowers of lilies, which pointed towards the center. Indeed, the driving position is much in conformity with the laws of the heraldic one.

January 21, 1948, Duplessis announces in Chaloult that fleurdelized will float at 3 p.m. on the central lathe of the Parliament. The proposal to rectify the flowers of lily was accepted by Duplessis, this one adding even that that was done "to indicate the value of our traditions and the force of our convictions" Two years later, the law of the official flag is adopted by the legislative Parliament. Fleurdelized thus becomes the official flag of Quebec.

Since Egypt and Gaule, the flower of lily will have crossed five millenia before becoming the emblem of our people. After a as long tour, it would be a pity well as our splendid flag remains only one provincial flag...!