Editing Henri Christophe (section)

==Nobility and heraldry==
[[File:Royal Coat of arms of Haiti (1811–1814).svg|thumb|right|Coat of Arms of the First Haitian Empire 1811-1820]]
[[File:Henry I, King of Haiti.jpg|thumb|In this portrait executed by [[Johann Gottfried Eiffe]], a German artist in the Royal Court, Henry wears the grand cross of the [[Royal and Military Order of St. Henry]] (''Ordre Royal et Militaire de Saint Henry'')]]
As king, Christophe created an elaborate Haitian [[peerage]] (nobility), originally consisting of four princes, eight dukes, 22 counts, 40 barons, and 14 knights ("''chevaliers''").  Christophe founded a [[College of Arms]] to provide armorial bearings for the newly ennobled. For his personal coat of arms, Christophe chose a crowned phoenix rising from flames, and the motto ‘''Je renais de mes cendres’'' (‘I rise from my ashes’), presumably referring to the rebirth of Cap Henry after he burned it in 1802 to repel the invading French army.{{citation needed|date=September 2021}}

Some Europeans mocked his creation. The titles of the ''Duc de Limonade'' (Julien Prévost, Christophe's secretary of state) and ''Duc de Marmelade'' (Jean-Pierre Richard, governor of Cap Henry) were considered particularly comic by those unaware that they were actually derived from place names given by the previous French colonists.<ref name="ceac" />