France and Canada
In France of the Ancien Régime, like in other countries, the ensign (enseigne) was the banner of an infantry regiment. As in other countries, the name began to be used for the officers who carried the ensign. It was renamed sublieutenant (sous-lieutenant) in the end of the 18th century. The Navy used a rank of ship-of-the-line ensign (enseigne de vaisseau), which was the first officer rank. It was briefly renamed ship-of-the-line sublieutenant (sous-lieutenant de vaisseau) in the end of the 18th century, but its original name was soon restored.
Nowadays, the rank is still used in the Marine Nationale: Ship-of-the-line ensign (enseigne de vaisseau) is the name of the two lowest officer ranks (which are distinguished as from one another as "first class", equal to an army lieutenant, and "second class", equal to an army sublieutenant.) Both ranks of ensign use the style lieutenant.
French-speaking Canadian Naval officers also use the terms of enseigne de vaisseau de deuxième classe and de première classe as the French term for acting sublieutenant and sublieutenant respectively. However, French-Canadian sublieutenants use the short form of enseigne instead of lieutenant.
Read more about this topic: Ensign (rank)
Famous quotes containing the words france and, france and/or canada:
“Springtime for Hitler and Germany,
Winter for France and Poland.”
—Mel Brooks (b. 1926)
“The bugle-call to arms again sounded in my war-trained ear, the bayonets gleamed, the sabres clashed, and the Prussian helmets and the eagles of France stood face to face on the borders of the Rhine.... I remembered our own armies, my own war-stricken country and its dead, its widows and orphans, and it nerved me to action for which the physical strength had long ceased to exist, and on the borrowed force of love and memory, I strove with might and main.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)
“This universal exhibition in Canada of the tools and sinews of war reminded me of the keeper of a menagerie showing his animals’ claws. It was the English leopard showing his claws.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)