Flag of the Netherlands The red-white-blue triband flag of the Netherlands as used in the 17th century is said to have influenced the Russian flag. With the revolution in the Netherlands in the last decade of the 18th century, and the conquest by the French, the name "Prince's Flag" was forbidden. The orange-white-blue was changed into red-white-blue (colours to which the French "liberators" were kindly disposed, analogous as they were to their own tricolour, chosen just a few months earlier) and in 1796 the red division of the flag was embellished with the figure of a Netherlands maiden, with a lion at her feet,
Flag of France However, he insisted that he would accept the throne only on the condition that the tricolour be replaced by the white flag. As the tricolour had become a cherished national symbol, this demand proved impossible to accommodate. Plans to restore the monarchy were adjourned and ultimately dropped, and France has remained a republic, with the tricolour flag, ever since. The Vichy régime, which dropped the word "republic" in favour of "the French state", maintained the use of the "tricolore", but Philippe Pétain used as his personal standard a version of the flag with, in the white stripe, an axe made