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Baie-d’Urfé, Quebec (Canada)

image by Ben Koorengevel, edited by Luc Baronian

City flag

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City flag

I took a photo of this flag in 1999 in a Montreal Urban Community building. The background color was a paler shade of blue however.
Luc Baronian, 9 May 2005

The municipality of Baie-d'Urfé (3,984 inhabitants in 2008; 670 ha) is located in the western part of Montreal Island. Baie-d'Urfé is named for the bay located between the Town Hall and Caron Point and for François Saturnin Lascaris d'Urfé, the first priest of the parish. An official map dated 1702 names today's Caron Point as Urfé Point, while the official maps made for Governor James Murray in 1762 shows Bay d'Urfie.

The domain of Montreal Island was purchased in 1663 by the Society of Saint-Sulpice, an order founded in Paris in 1641 that played a key role in the founding of Montreal. The Sulpicians offered pieces of land to create the parishes of Lachine and Saint-Louis, the St. Louis church being built on St. Louis Point, today's Caron Point. In 1685, the Bishop of Quebec visited the parish and appointed François Saturnin Lascaris d'Urfé (1641-1701) as its priest. On 30 September 1687, eight colonists were killed in an Iroquois raid, including Jean de Lalonde (1640-1687), first colonist of the place and churchwarden of the parish since 1685. The St. Louis parish was "repatriated" to Lachine, while d'Urfé sailed back to France. When the St. Louis parish was reestablished in 1703, the church was rebuilt on a safer site, protected by Fort Senneville. In the late 19th century, access to the place was facilitated by the building of the railway serving the Bayview station. Rich merchants from Montreal built farms and transformed them in vacation houses. In 1902, some inhabitants fond of history petitioned for renaming the station Baie-d'Urfé; this name was adopted for the town chartered in 1911.
- http://www.baie-durfe.qc.ca/FRANCAIS/histoire.html - Municipal website

The flag of Baie-d'Urfé is blue with, in the middle, a white disk charged with the municipal arms and the writing "BAIE D'URFÉ 1686".

The arms of Baie-d'Urfé were designed in 1961 by Mayor Tommy Lee, based on the arms of François d'Urfé. The Urfé shield, "Vair a chief gules", is engraved on the base of François d'Urfé's chalice, preserved in the Notre-Dame Museum. The shield is crowned by a Marquis' coronet, recalling that François d'Urfé was Marquis of Beauzé. The crown of thorns surrounding the shield recalls that d'Urfé belonged to the Society of Saint-Sulpice.
- http://www.baie-durfe.qc.ca/FRANCAIS/armoiries.html - Municipal website

The Urfé arms are seen in several rooms of the family castle, the Bâtie d'Urfé, located in Saint-Étienne-le-Molard (Forez, France). Claude d'Urfé (1501-1558), Governor and Bailiff of Forez, represented the King of France at the Council of Trent (1546) and was appointed Ambassador of France at the Holy See; he revamped the castle in Renaissance style, building a grotto that is the last from that period kept in France. His grandson Honoré d'Urfé (1567-1625) is the author of the first novel sequence in the French literature, "L'Astrée" (5,400 pages, written between 1607 and 1625).
- http://www.loire.fr/jcms/lw_896393/saint-etienne-le-molard-la-batie-durfe

Ivan Sache, 23 July 2012