"French Gendarme Pistols?" Topic

Does anybody have any information on when French gendarmes began to carry pistols in addition to the lance? I am aware that from the ordnance of 1549, the 'archers' were required to carry a pistol, but what about the gendarmes themselves. I am not really talking about their use by Huguenots later in the Religious Wars when they effectively became cuirassiers.

The 1574 ordonnance required the Gendarmes to have one pistol each but even at Ivry 16 years later a good number of Catholic Gendarmes seem to have lacked them.

A 1552 eyewitness description of the French army noted that the Archers had pistols while the Gendarmes carried maces.

At a first glance my sources are silent for the 22 years between 1552 and 1574, based on events it is clear that at least individual Gendarmes had pistols but wether this was a personal choice or something demanded by regulations I can't say. My impression is that pistols were not common in the wars of the 1560's which is why the Catholics in particular hired Reiters and refused to engage the Huguenots without them present.

IIRC it is La Noue who complains in the 1580's that the French were slow to adopt the pistol and were often infrequent users of it.

I would agree with what Daniel said, in that there are a number of anecdotal references to Gendarmes with pistols in the early wars, but it is clear that the lance was very much the primary weapon until at least the early 1570s. As periods between truces grew longer and warfare became local and positional, pistols seem to have proliferated while lances declined, at least for the Huguenots.

That the successes of the Reiters influenced tactics as can be seen mentioned (and often resisted) in a number of commentators. Reiters were extremely expensive however and even the crown couldn't afford them as they had in the 1560s. The next really big batch doesn't really show up until the later 1580s. French gendarmes did not try to emulate the large formations of the Reiters but certainly in 'small war' the pistol was common later on, and the regiments Navarre brought north of the Loire were not big on lances after ignoring them for so long.

Many thanks for the speedy and detailed responses. I found the point about the 1574 ordnance in 'The King's Army' after I had submitted the post, but of course, this isn't the whole story as you have noted. Another thought occurred to me whilst re-reading the same work: did the conversion of chevauleger companies into gendarmerie hasten this process? I understand that the chevauleger were pistol-armed prior to this. I should, perhaps, have mentioned the reason for my question. Inspired by TPC's Spanish Fury rules, I want to represent the early wars in 28mm. I am, however, struggling to find figures that look right for the period. I am considering adding false sleeves to TAG's renaissance gendarmes and mounting them on horses with pistols on the saddle. My other concern is whether they should be wearing boots or greaves and sabatons.

If you are focusing on the "early wars" which from a gaming standpoint are mainly the 1st to 3rd war (IMO)I would say that simply adding the false sleeves hanging on the back of the Gendarmes would go a long way, pistols are only necessary if you want to model the Archers as separate figures.

Gendarmes would probably still have full leg armour in the 1560's, Archers did not have it so again it depends on how detailed you want to make the representation. And of course it is far from certain that the volunteers who provided a significant part of Huguenot Gendarmes had the full panoply required of the members of an Ordonnance company. Certainly by St. Denis 1567 some companies were a mix of armoured lancers and pistoliers who went into action wearing little more than the white cassock.

Daniel, thanks for the advice. I will certainly go with the false sleeves. I will be picking up some gendarmes from The Assault Group at the York show on Sunday. They also do separate pistol holsters. I think I may add these anyway, principally to give the visual impression of being distinct from the earlier period. I might try and find some figures that I could use as either archers integral in the gendarme units or chevaulegers.