French infantry regiments of the ancien régime carried two flags into the field. The first was the white drapeau colonel — the king's color, plain white with the royal arms in the centre, carried by the senior color party as the symbol of the regiment's allegiance to the crown. The second was the drapeau d'ordonnance, the regimental color, which varied by unit. The Royal Deux-Ponts ordonnance color was particularly elaborate: a white field quartered by a yellow saltire (the St. Andrew's cross), with golden fleurs-de-lys scattered between the cross arms, and four cartouches displaying the arms of Zweibrücken — the regiment's home duchy in the Palatinate — at the corners. The whole banner served as both a regimental identity marker and a tactical reference point: in the smoke of an eighteenth-century engagement, the colors marked where the unit was and where the line should be. The ensign carrying it was the youngest commissioned officer in the company.

This figure shows a Royal Deux-Ponts ensign in the 1779 ordonnance uniform — blue coat with yellow facings, white cross-belts and waistcoat, white breeches, black knee gaiters, bicorne hat — bearing the regiment's drapeau d'ordonnance on a wooden staff. The flag is the figure's defining feature: white field with the yellow saltire, central crown over fleurs-de-lys, and the Palatine arms of Zweibrücken at the cross-arms. The ensign was usually a young commissioned officer (the rank below lieutenant) — a position that combined the honor of carrying the colors with the danger of being one of the most visible targets in the unit. He pairs with the Royal Deux-Ponts officer (Captain von Closen), the Royal Deux-Ponts Chasseur sergeant, and the Continental Line Ensign with Flag — the American counterpart carrying the Stars and Stripes alongside whom this French ensign would have stood at Yorktown.

1/30 scale (60mm), matte-painted, single figure boxed. Catalog number 16188. As with the rest of the W. Britain modern range, the painting is photographic-quality detail intended to read well in dioramas and display cases.