Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité), the motto of the French Republic, dates from the time of the first revolution. Equality, it should be noted, merely means equality before the law and the absence of class privileges. The motto gives title to a work by Sir J. F. Stephen (1873). For the Cap of Liberty, see BONNET. The custom of planting trees of liberty, crowned with a bonnet rouge, became common during the Revolution.
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Volume 6: Humber to Malta, p. 605
Source scan(s): p. 0620