Following the decree for the first amalgame, or embrigadement, of 1793, the Comite de la Guerre charged General Etienne-Nicolas de Calon, an engineer officer by trade and the Directeur du depot de la Guerre, to devise a plan for new flags and standards to go with the reorganized armed forces of France.

Flags of 1st and 3rd battalions of the 12, 70, 57 regiments. The bottom flag is the obverse of the 57.

In less than a month, Calon had solidified his ideas and presented them to the Convention on 2 March, 1794. According to the copy of the report preserved in the Archives du service historique de l'armee de terre in the ch‰teau de Vincennes, Calon called for:

"the flags, standards and guidons of the entire Republic to be in the national colors [red, white and blue]. The flags of the infantry of the ligne [demi-brigades de bataille] will have on them the center of a fascine, surmounted by a Bonnet of Liberty with two oak branches attached to the fascine. On one side of the flag will be inscribed REPUBLIQUE FRAN‚AISE [FRENCH REPUBLIC], while on the reverse side of the flag will be DISCIPLINE ET OBEISSANCE AUX LOIS MILITAIRES [DISCIPLINE AND OBEDIENCE TO THE MILITARY LAWS].

"The number of each demi-brigade will be placed in each of the four corners of the flag on both faces. Each battalion will carry one flag.

"Each demi-brigade is formed of 3 battalions. The flag of the 1st and 3rd battalions will be different from the center [2nd] battalion, and the pattern of each of the 1st and 3rd battalion flags will be distinctive to each demi-brigade, with the flags of all center [2nd] battalions being identical, except for the number of the demi-brigade."

The new guidelines suggested by Calon and adopted by the Convention had their design roots in the regimental flags of the existing army that had been authorized by the National Assembly in 1791, where the senior battalion carried an updated version of the colonel's white flag, while the junior battalions of each regiment carried identical-pattern red and white colors that were unique to each regiment.

In essence, Calon's flag scheme called for the new troops -- the Volunteers of 1791, the Volunteers of 1792 and those of the levee en masse of 1793 -- that comprised the 1st and 3rd battalions to carry identical flags unique to that demi-brigade, while the soldiers of the old royalist army, formed in the 2nd battalion of each demi-brigade, would carry a standardized flag edged in red, white and blue with the tricolor in the upper corner.

Of the demi-brigades de bataille numbered 1 through 81 formed from the first amalgame, at least one model flag from each unit still exists today in the Musee de l'Armee in Paris. Copies of flags from demi-brigades de bataille numbered 82 through 119 also exist, but information becomes very sketchy for demi-brigades de bataille numbered 120 and up. Generally, the demi-brigades legere (light) followed the same pattern as the demi-brigades de bataille (line).

For more information on the amalgames of the French army, please see Napoleon magazine #9.

Without a doubt, the most exhaustive published study ever made of the flags and standards of the French Revolution can be seen in: O. Hollander, Les drapeaux des demi-brigades d'infanterie de 1794-1804, Paris, 1913.