The Briquet Sword - The French Cabbage Chopper

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It is time bring back to life couple items from the days when France could not decide if it wants to be a monarchy, a republic or an empire.

We have here with us today two swords, called briquet that have a life span synonymous with the 19th century France.

But, before anything else, we have to go back to our origins. Yes, back to the Ancient world as the two swords you can see here are a Neoclassical style example of a Gladius or, in my opinion, a Xiphos.

The Gladius was one Latin word for sword, and is used to represent the primary sword of Ancient Roman foot soldiers. The Xiphos is a double-edged, one-handed Iron Age straight short sword used by the ancient Greeks.

As for the French many centuries later, the short sword was a secondary weapon for the Greeks. The xiphos was generally used only when the spear was broken, taken by the enemy, or discarded for close combat. The shape of the French short sword is very similar with the Greek one, and yes the Romans used it too, but only as an emulation of the Greek example and only up to the 3rd century, when they’ve adopted the Celtiberial blade pattern.

The crossguard of the briquet is also similar with its Greek counterpart. Probably is as famous as well, due to the Greco-Persian wars or the film ‘300’, depending if we’ve read Herodotus and Thucydides or just watch Netflix!

In any case, a well-known weapon doesn’t disappear so easily into the mist of history.

So as the 18th and early 19th centuries were enveloped by the neoclassic movement, it seemed like a good idea to restore some of the classic military technology as well.

The story starts a year after King Louis the XVIII accedes to the throne of France. In 1816 a short artillery sword is introduced into the French service. Its role was to offer close quarter protection to the artillery men in case they were attacked by cavalry or infantry.

The difference between this pattern and the later 1831 one are quite insignificant. The newer model had a ringed grip rather than the fishscale pattern seen in the earlier one.

Introduced in 1831 during the reign of Louis Philippe I (the last king of France), it survived the 1848 revolution and continued to serve as a self defence weapon through ought Napoleon III reign, first as the first president of France (1848-1852) and second as the last emperor of France (1852-1870).

This sword has seen service during the colonial conquest of Algeria (1830s on), the Crimean War (1853-56), Napoleon III's Italian (1859) and Mexican (1860s) expeditions plus the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871).

The French Infantry Glaive M1831, “glaive des troupes à pied modèle 1831,” was known colloquially by the troops as the “coupe choux” meaning “cabbage chopper. It was not a popular weapon, being heavy and unwieldy and it tended to be used more as a field tool instead of as a weapon - as its nick-name suggests.
The first of our examples here is an earlier piece stamped JEAN on the blade
The second example is of a later make, marked with the letter “N” within a circle and the issue number “1777”, on its cross guard. The stamp ‘Talabot FS 1832, Paris’ (Talabot Brothers) can be seen on one side of the blade’s ricasso and a pair of inspectors marks are revealed on the reverse.
This last example comes with its black leather and brass elements scabbard which is very well preserved.
There are many other things to be said and learned about these weapons and that is why we encourage you to do your own research on the subject.