Reinforcements for King Louis (Part 11: The Royal-Carabiniers)

I did promise that there would be some tricorns among the recent wave of shakos, so here are some more French cavalry that I painted late last year and early this year.

Before we go on to that however, I’d just like to boast that this blog has passed through 500,000 hits since its creation in April 2018 and has already passed 102,000 this year alone (surpassing the 101,091 hits in 2024, which was my best year to date), so I’d like to thank my remaining reader for all that clicking!  As I’ve said before, I don’t make any money from this blog.  I just do it because the chicks dig it and for the free drugs and groupies (any day now…).  It’s just nice to know that at least one person finds my wafflings mildly interesting.  As stated in the past, I may not be exactly ‘viral’, but at least I’m a persistent yeast infection.

Rest assured that this site will never be plastered with bandwidth-sucking, malware-spreading clickbait ads like so many others.  This is partly because I hate them, but mainly because with my level of technical skills, you’re lucky that this blog even has pictures…

Above:  The Royal-Carabiniers.  This regiment was originally created in 1693, being formed from the massed Carabinier companies of the heavy cavalry regiments.  There had since at least the 1670s, been two Carabiniers per cavalry company, being picked marksmen, armed with rifled carbines and trained and equipped for dismounted combat, like dragoons.  These men were always massed and placed at the head of their squadron when on the march.  In 1690, these men were massed in a dedicated Carabinier Company, that would be placed at the head of their regiment and were considered to be something of an élite, like the infantry’s grenadiers.

Louis-Auguste, Duc du Maine (1650)

From 1691 the Carabinier Companies were increasingly used as a massed élite regiment and in 1693 were distinguished at the Battle of Neerwinden (a.k.a. Landen).  As thanks for their service, King Louis XIV massed them permanently as a new regiment, titled ‘Royal-Carabiniers’, being ranked 18th among the line cavalry regiments and commanded by his favourite (and illegitimate) son, Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, Duc du Maine.  This new regiment was absolutely colossal, consisting of 100 companies, grouped into 50 squadrons, which were again grouped into five ‘brigades’, each brigade being the equivalent of a large regiment in its own right.  The regiment was maintained as an élite corps, with selective recruitment from other regiments and commissions mostly awarded to worthy officer candidates who could not afford to purchase a commission in other regiments.

Above: The Royal-Carabiniers.  In 1698 and following the end of the Nine Years War, 60 companies were disbanded and although there were still five brigades, each brigade now consisted only of two squadrons, each of four companies.  The regiment continued to use this organisation throughout the Wars of Spanish Succession and Polish Succession.

Up until the end of the War of Spanish Succession, the regiment’s brigades were typically split across two theatres of war.  There was some suggestion that this was a deliberate effort to remove the need for the Duc du Maine to actually have to lead his regiment to war, which would have been the case if the regiment were all massed in one place.   However, from the War of Polish Succession onward, all five brigades always campaigned together.

Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, Prince de Dombes (1713)

Above:  The Royal-Carabiniers.

Following the death of the Duc du Maine in 1736 the colonelcy passed to his eldest son, Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, Prince de Dombes and as he had been elevated to a ‘Prince of the Blood’, the regiment was elevated to 12th in order of seniority.  The regiment continued with the 40-company/10 squadron/5 brigade organisation throughout the War of Austrian Succession with a total of 1,400 men (this number probably does not include officers, NCOs and musicians) and it continued with this organisation throughout the Seven Years War.

At the end of the war in 1763, the regiment was reorganised again, with the number of companies being reduced to 30 (three companies per squadron), though the number of squadrons and brigades remained the same.

With the death of the Prince de Dombes in 1755, the regiment remained vacant until 1758, when it was passed to the three year-old infantry Louis-Stanislas-Xavier, Comte de Provence (the future King Louis XVIII).  At this point the regiment lost its ‘Royal’ status and became the Corps des Carabiniers de Monsieur le Comte de Provence while also being demoted to 22nd in order of seniority.

The Comte de Provence in 1770, aged 14

In 1763, following the end of combat operations during the Seven Years War, the regiment was reduced to 30 companies, though still with the 10 squadron/5 brigade structure.

I must confess at this point that five sub-units is a bloody awkward number when I build units with 12 or 16 figures.  I’ve therefore arbitrarily represented the whole regiment as four 8-figure ‘brigades’, grouped into two 16-figure ‘wings’ (which in game terms equate to large regiments of 700 to 1,000 men).  As I’ve been told in the past; with this cavalier approach to history, I may as well be playing Warhammer 40K…  Ah well, The Emperor Protects…

Louis-Marie Fouquet, Come de Gisors (1758)

Along with the Gendarmerie de France, during the Seven Years War the regiment continued to enjoy a deserved reputation as one of the elite corps of the French Army and was often placed in the army reserve.  The Carabiniers fought at Hastenbeck, Rossbach (only one brigade present), Krefeld, Bork, Minden, Corbach, Vellinghausen and Wilhelmsthal.

At Krefeld the Carabiniers performed distinguished service, charging the Hanoverian infantry and breaking through the first two lines, but being halted by the third line.  However, they suffered horribly with very heavy losses, among them their field commander, the Comte de Gisors, who was mortally wounded by a Hanoverian musket-ball, dying three days later.  At Minden the Carabiniers, along with the Gendarmerie de France, famously launched the final French cavalry charge of the day, breaking through the first line of Spörcken’s Division (a British infantry brigade and the Hanoverian Foot Guards) where all other French cavalry had failed, though being halted by the second British brigade.  Again, they suffered horrifically (Kronoskaf curiously states that the Carabiniers suffered the loss of 700 men and 69 officers at both Krefeld and Minden, which seems rather unlikely).

Above:  The Royal-Carabiniers.  The regiment wore a blue coat with red cuffs and linings, silver lace edging to the cuffs and a white & silver fringed epaulette on the left shoulder.  Some sources show the addition of red lapels from 1760, but it seems that these were not actually added until after the reorganisation of 1763.  Buttons were silver and were evenly-spaced down each side of the breast, with three buttons on each cuff, three on each tail-pocket and one either side of the rear waist.

Waistcoats, breeches and gloves were buff.  Waistcoats were edged with silver and white lace.  As with other French cavalry regiments, they would often wear a breastplate under the coat and would often dispense with the coat altogether, just wearing their buff waistcoat and breastplate.

Horse furniture was blue, edged with silver and white lace.  Hats were edged with silver lace and decorated with a black cockade, held in place with a silver button.  Belts were white, scabbards were black leather and cartridge pouches were red leather.  Unlike other cavalry regiments, they carried their carbines butt-down, like dragoons.  However, I’ve just used standard Eureka Miniatures French cavalry figures here, with carbines carried muzzle-down.  I suppose I could have used dragoon figures wearing tricorn.

Trumpeters wore the usual Royal Livery of blue coats, faced red and heavily laced with crimson & white, chain-pattern lace.

Above:  The Royal-Carabiniers.  According to David Morfitt’s Not By Appointment blog, the regiment carried a standard of blue silk, with the field covered in gold fleurs-de-lys, edged with a silver-and-gold fringe and emblazoned with the Sun of France and white scroll above, with the motto NEC PLURIBUS IMPAR.  This was the same on both sides.  David goes on to say that his pattern was also used by the Royal, Royal-Étranger and Royal-Roussillon Cavalry Regiments.

However, according to Kronoskaf, the above-named regiments (and the Royal-Allemand Cavalry Regiment) used a plainer style of blue standard, lacking the fleus-de-lys, but edged with some ‘scrambled egg’ in the corners.  I’ve no idea who is correct, but I’ve used the lovely standards created by David, printed on my own laser-printer.

Kronoskaf also says that the regiment carried four standards, though this doesn’t make sense to me, as the regiment had five brigades.  Is this perhaps a mistake and were there perhaps five standards (one per brigade)?  That would certainly make more sense.  Of course it’s all academic here, as I’ve only painted four brigades! 🙂

I was going to add some more French cavalry regiments to this post, but it’s already a long article, so I’ll save them for next time.