DRAGOON TROOP HELMET, type 1762, from Château de la Bourdonnaye (Morbihan), Former Monarchy. 28453.

DRAGOON TROOP HELMET, type 1762, from Château de la Bourdonnaye (Morbihan), Former Monarchy. 28453

Crown (shell) made of round brass, approximately 5 cm deep.
Turban composed of a leather band 11 cm high in the front forming a peak, 7.5 cm on the sides and at the back, covered with a skin of seal (having lost all its fur).
Chin scales rosettes in stamped brass in the shape of palmettes, 6 cm in diameter.
Crest in brass with embossed relief decorations: the fins have a maximum height of 6.5 cm, each of them is struck with eight diminishing gadroons towards the back; mask 9 cm high, 3.2 cm wide; at the top is represented a head of Medusa. The bottom of the fins is folded outwards (not scalloped), each riveted to the shell by means of four flat-headed brass nails.
Black horsehair mane mounted on a leather sole covering the entire top of the crest, with a braid in part, total length of the mane approximately 44 cm.
Interior lining composed of a band of black waxed calfskin sewn at the base of the turban to a height of 1 cm and folded inside to a height of 3.5 cm, then topped with a fine ecru canvas.
Total height of the helmet 19 cm.

France.
Former Monarchy, around 1762-1770.
Good to very good condition, never cleaned, fur from the band missing.

PROVENANCE: Château de la Bourdonnaye (Morbihan).

NOTE:
It was not until the second half of the 18th century that an infantry unit, the Volontaires de Saxe, (unit created in 1743 by the victor of the Battle of Fontenoy, Marshal Maurice de Saxe) replaced the traditional hat with a helmet. Inspired by the headgear of volunteer troops from the east of the Rhine, formed for the War of the Austrian Succession, this new helmet was chosen by Marshal de Saxe and validated by the Minister of War Choiseul in 1762. This marked the birth of the modern French infantry helmet, consisting of a leather shell; around the same time, the helmet was also adopted for the cavalry (for dragoon regiments) with a brass shell.

At its creation, the cavalry helmet had a height of 19 cm which would evolve to 27 cm on the eve of the Revolution.
It was in 1762 that the helmet was adopted for the dragoon headgear. In 1779, the height of the helmet was slightly raised, and since then no further changes were made, and the Revolutionary dragoons continued to wear helmets like those of the King's dragoons: with a relatively low copper shell, surrounded by a seal skin turban or tiger skin for officers, with a black plume and a mane falling on each side and at the back of the crest, which was also not very high. According to the instructions given in 1768 by Colonel Autichamp to his major, the helmet manes were to be "curled so that they are never disheveled" and numerous portraits have shown that this instruction was still in use.

The helmet presented in this record is from the very beginning of this period with its low shape (19 cm). The crest is very early with this large head of Medusa on its mask and the absence of palmettes at the lower part; the fins have a rustic design with a base folded on the shell cut straight without scallops, as will soon be the case in the evolution of helmets; absence of plume holder, aigrette holder (plume) not yet appeared at the front of the crest, jugular made of two rosettes supporting a leather chin strap at that time. Also note that the presence at the lower back of the band of a tightening strap for adjusting the size of the helmet has not yet appeared, as will be the case during the Revolution and the Empire.