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Part of the Cabinet des titres at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF) is the manuscript "Armorial général de France." This is a collection of arms [...]

[...] the "Armorial général de France" was essentially a tax scheme for Louis XIV to raise money between 1696 and 1709. People had to pay a fee to register their arms (usually 20 livres). If they did not, then they would be punished with fines (300 livres with a third going to the informer) and their arms would be defaced. In order to generate even more income, the clerks would assign arms to prosperous merchants and well-to-do peasants and then collect the tax from them. So if you find an ancestor or relative with arms, then do not assume that the arms originated in the dawn of the middle ages. The arms might have been the creation of a tax clerk eager to collect more money for the king.