"French grenadier dress" Topic

What is the evidence for special headgear for French grenadiers during the WSS?

The only thing C.S.Grant mentions is that they wore a soft hat turned up on the sides, with the exception of the Garde Francais who had grenadier type hats. No pic or description of what type of hat.
I was under the impression that French Grenadiers had the same hat/tricorne as the other infantry until much later when bearskins come into fashion.

That is my understanding as well, not just from Grant but my Kuhn uniform cards as well … but I keep seeing art with the grenadier bonnets and they certainly look good…
Mark

Whoops, those are Wagner plates I bought in Munich.

I have never researched the WSS, but…

As I recall, French line and militia Grenadiers at the beginning of the 7YW wore the same tricorns as the rest of the unit, but wore moustaches, and had larger ammunition pouches. Almost impossible to designate in 15mm.

The French military was very conservative, and probably were the same for the WSS,

In the later years of the 7YW some adopted a bearskin, and some regiments adopted breeches in the color of their facings.

This was a problem of mine for my Battle of Turin 1706

link

I came to the same conclusion that they wore a tricorne. Then I asked opinion to Richard (with which we are doing the WSS Kronoskaf Project) and he found sources that they had fur caps. Also, in the Piedmontese chronicles of the time I read that the Piedmontese said "we saw 300 Grenadiers attcking the ramparts" and a lot of time it is point out that a grenadier unit did this or that. Now, if they were identical to infantry (tricorne) it would have been impossible to distinquish from the normal infantry … moreover, the Piedmontese Army in WSS wore uniforms totally based on the French ones; this is sure. And the Piedmontese grenadiers wore a low fur cap; all this brought me to re-consider my opinion and draw French Grenadiers with fur cap:

FRENCH GRENADIER

PIEDMONTESE GRENADIER