Its white flowers signalled it to mankind. We, the humans, share the stereotypical view of flowers as colored. Actually, white flowers are not an impediment to pollinisation, insects have eyesights differing from ours.
Not only do colors differ for humans and say honeybees, in addition the stimuli plants offer for pollination are not only colors, also shapes. And of course « colors », i.e., wavelengths are perceived differently between insects and humans. Honeybees for instance perceive wavelengths in the ultraviolet we do not see.
White lilies have acquired deep and heavy symbolical significance to us. Before I turn to French royalty, the Bible beckons. The lily flower thus was a symbol for Israel in Antiquity. During the Roman Empire, the lily flower with its six petals was engraved on Jewish tombs in the catacombs, and its stylization led to the six-pointed star.
The lily became an attribute of Mary in the 11th century, in reference to the verse from the Song of Songs, “Sicut lïlium inter spinas, sic arnica mea inter filias” (2:2; Like a lily among thorns, such is my beloved among the young women.).
Philippe-Auguste (1165-1223), of the Capetian lineage, was a great warrior who, at the Battle of Bouvines (1214), vanquished the king of England. During his long reign, he significantly increased his possessions, thus becoming the first King of France — instead of a mere King of the Franks. His propaganda seized upon the lily flower as a powerful symbol,
connecting him to sanctity — yet reinforced by his son and successor Louis IX (1214-1270) becoming canonized.
Allow me to comment now briefly a paragraph, in my translatrion, from Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables (1862):
The white flag, tinged pink by the setting sun, flew over the dome of
the Tuileries. The Place de la Concorde, which had reverted to its former name of Place Louis XV, was filled with happy strollers. Many wore the silver fleur-de-lis suspended from a white moiré ribbon, which in 1817 had not yet completely disappeared from buttonholes.
This description, from the third chapter, “The year 1817”, does not fail to mention the fleur-de-lis emblem. In 1817 Napoléon, who after Waterloo had been exiled by the English to the St.Helen’s island in the South Atlantic, was no longer the ruler of France. He had been replaced by Louis XVIII, of the Bourbon dynasty. Hence these two revealing details, Place Louis XV and the return of the fleur-de-lis (in Hugo’s spelling). That the flag flying over the
dôme of the Tuileries — in-between the Louvre and the Place Louis XV — to us Place de la Concorde — is accordinglmy the white flag of the French monarchy.
Note : Victor Hugo writes from memory. At that time, he was in exile in Jersey, in protest against Napoleon III, whom he termed in despise the small Napoleon.