“Dup”, brandy and Richelieu
by Mike Oettle
NEWS reports some time back concerning a man called Richelieu du Plessis drew my attention to this South African family.
“Dup” is a familiar nickname for any Du Plessis, Du Preez or even Du Pisanie. But where does this Richelieu come from, you might ask? Was this fellow’s dad too fond of brandy? (Richelieu is a popular South African make of brandy.)
Well, let’s first look at the business of “Du” – in the Middle Ages, an aristocrat was known by his given name plus the name of his estate.
A family with various landholdings would sometimes bear different “surnames” in different regions, while others would retain the name of an ancestral estate as a last name, even in other countries.
In the Netherlands the prefix
“van” was used to indicate the estate, in Germany, “von”, and in France “de” or “du”.
In England either “de” or “of” was used – the French form due to the predominance of Norman or French families in that country’s aristocracy after 1066.
The use of such a prefix is not a guarantee of aristocratic ancestry – in the Netherlands particularly, many families mocked the aristocracy with “Van” prefixes when they were forced by revolutionary France to use family names – but in France and Germany especially, it is usually a marker of an aristocratic background.
In the case of the Du Plessis family of South Africa there is in fact a connection – and in fact with the prince of the Church after whom the brandy is named.
The founder of the South African family, Jean Prieur du Plessis, was related to the dukes of Richelieu, among whom the best-known was the notorious cardinal: Armand-Jean du Plessis, first minister to King Louis XVIII.
The cardinal’s coat of arms appears at the top of this page. Note the (French) ducal coronet (indicating his aristocratic rank), the red cardinal’s hat with the tassels which hang on either side of the shield (indicating his high rank in the Church), the anchor from which the shield hangs (sign of his naval rank as Admiral of France), the ermine-lined mantle behind, on which the contents of the shield are repeated on the outside (also indicating high aristocratic rank), and the blue riband and enamelled gold jewel of the French and Roman Catholic Order of the Holy Spirit (Ordre du Saint-Esprit) – which in its turn, ironically, is connected with the Huguenot cross.
So the Du Plessis’s of South Africa are entitled to the simple, distinctive arms borne by the cardinal:
Argent, three chevronels gules.
(In English-language blazon, more than one chevron on a shield or part of a shield is a chevronel. Afrikaans makes no such distinction, calling either a single chevron or a number of chevronels by the same term, keper.)
Cor Pama writes that some South African Du Plessis’s vary this basic family coat by changing the silver field to ermine.
I have been told that the head of the South African family in the early 19th century became heir to the ducal title, and was invited to return to France to take over the family estate.
I have unfortunately not uncovered any proof of this story. It would in any case not have been directly after the fall of Napoleon, as there was a Duc de Richelieu in that period who was also first minister to the King of France. He died in 1822.
But it seems to me that the South African head of the family would be entitled to bear the simple coat of arms, and that other members of the family may bear them with marks of difference.
Unfortunately Pama, for many years the expert in the field of heraldry in South Africa, is unhelpful, as he makes no reference to registrations or grants.
But he does mention that the Du Plessis family in South Africa began bearing these arms around 1933:
Argent, a cross gules; upon an inescutcheon argent three chevronels gules.
He avers that the arms are those of the dukes de Richelieu, but the cardinal certainly did not bear the version with the red cross – possibly this was borne by the later dukes.
He notes further that in 1947 the red cross fell away, and the family bore just the three chevronels, but with the field in ermine, not silver.
However, his colour illustration of the arms shows a silver shield.
And people who know the uniform of the Hoërskool Otto du Plessis will know that the school arms incorporate the red cross.
If you are a Du Plessis, why don’t you do some research to establish your position in the family, then write to the State Herald. You stand a good chance of becoming the lawfully registered owner of one or other variation of the three chevronels.
Comments, queries: Mike Oettle