I have painted unit of hussars for my French Napoleonic army.
I went with the 3rd hussar regiment this time and given them all really nice hats to mark them as elite.
I went with the 3rd hussar regiment this time and given them all really nice hats to mark them as elite.
The miniatures are from Perry Miniatures.
A very fine depiction of the Estérahzi Hussars regiment, which became the 3rd Hussars during the Revolution.
ReplyDeleteThere is a small issue regarding the color of the leatherwork, which you have painted white. Under the Ancien Régime and the Revolution, the leather was white. From 1803 onward, the belt loops became black. After the advent of the Empire in 1804, all the leatherwork—including the two cartridge pouch and musket loops, the belt belt, and the sword and sabretache loops—was black and glossy.
The only other French unit wearing black leather was the Imperial Guard Marines Battalion.
The only French hussars with black leather were the royalist émigrés: the hussars of Salm-Kirburg, the Damas Legion, York, and Choiseul. The other émigré hussars wore white leather.
The Perry hussar uniform description is magnificent, but the profile view partially obscures the leather color.
For more details, I can recommend:
https://fr.empirecostume.com/les-hussards-fran-ais-tome-1-collection-officiers-et-a16999.htm
https://www.antikcostume.com/les-hussards-fran-ais-tome-2-collection-officiers-et-a16998.htm
https://www.librairie-du-collectionneur.fr/produit/123141-les-hussards-francais-tome-3
It's in French, but with very little text and a multitude of illustrations of uniforms and their evolution. I believe it also exists in an English version.
Big thanks for your thoroughly answer. Love it
DeleteIf you are open to criticism, always constructive of course, I can offer three points:
ReplyDeleteThe first concerns the horses' coat colors. Unlike British cavalrymen, whose horses were all the same color to avoid exposing themselves in combat, and trumpeters who were distinguished only by a red plume, French trumpeters wore the reversed colors, then the imperial livery, and rode gray horses (that is, white horses) to be more easily identified by the commanding officer whose orders they relayed using their trumpets. While some officers might ride gray horses, the troops were mounted on horses whose coat colors varied from one squadron to another. Possibly black in the first squadron, bay in the second, chestnut in the third, and gray in the fourth. Even if the color couldn't be perfectly replicated, the officers in charge of remounting the cavalry tried to distribute the mounts according to this theoretical distribution.
I thought I glimpsed a Chaillot-type flag surmounted by a pike. After the distribution of the eagles,
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Distribution_des_aigles
each battalion, each squadron had an eagle. In 1810, Napoleon decreed that regiments would henceforth have only one flag surmounted by the eagle, assigned to the 1st battalion or squadron. The other battalions would have a monochrome flag surmounted by a pike (white, red, green, blue, purple, etc.). There were, however, two exceptions: the Velite battalions of Florence and Turin, tasked with protecting Napoleon's sisters, Elisa and Pauline. Their flag did not receive an eagle.
The 2nd Hussars have light blue as their distinctive color, and here's why. Louis XVI's minister, the Count of Choiseul, annoyed by the hussars' multicolored uniforms, had, by royal decree, given all hussar regiments a single color. The Marquis de Chamborant, wanting to please the young Queen Marie Antoinette, asked her what color to give her cavalrymen. Since they were behaving like scoundrels, she suggested the color of the Capuchin monks' habit, in other words, brown. Later, the king softened his stance and agreed that the hussars should have a distinctive color. This time, the Marquis took the initiative and, upon meeting the young queen, said to her, "May it please Your Majesty that I give my hussars, as their distinctive color, the color of your eyes." The queen, a Habsburg, was blonde with light blue eyes? And so, the regiment adopted light blue as its distinctive color.
I found the representation of the 33rd Infantry in white uniform with violet insignia very elegant.
Regarding the low cost of the mounted chasseurs, you are correct. Even today, a reserve cavalry officer without an assignment is transferred to the mounted chasseur subdivision, whose insignia he wears: the silver helmet common to all cavalry on a green chasseur background.
https://www.passioninsigne.fr/macaron-de-berets/1007-arme-blindee-cavalerie-insigne-de-beret-avec-plastron-vert-chasseurs-a-cheval.html