Handwritten Inspection Report Of The Metz Regiment – Royal Artillery Corps – 1767

Handwritten muster roll of the Metz Regiment – Royal Artillery Corps – 1767

Description:

Roll call of the Metz Regiment, part of the Royal Artillery Corps, compiled during the reign of Louis XV and handwritten with the date October 15, 1767.

This small military booklet from the Ancien Régime, measuring 12 × 8 cm, consists of printed tables completed in pen. It outlines the regiment’s organization by seniority: general staff, captains first, lieutenants, order of battle, brigades, battalions, and companies of gunners, bombers, and sappers.

Each company is then the subject of a detailed roll call listing officers, quartermasters, sergeants, drummers, corporals, and enlisted men. This document thus provides an overview of the personnel and organization of the Metz Regiment in 1767, two years after its official formation from the former Loyauté Brigade. During the Revolution, this unit would become the 2nd Artillery Regiment.

Among the officers mentioned is Pierre de Gimel, then first captain of his company. Having risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Metz Regiment, he commanded four companies of gunners, one company of bombardiers, and one company of sappers in Rochambeau’s army during the American War of Independence. He ended his career as a major general and inspector of artillery, and was admitted to the Order of Cincinnatus.

The report also mentions Jacques-César de Saint-Michel de Missolz, future brigade commander of the Metz Regiment and director of artillery for the Windward Islands, as well as Jean-Claude-Joachim de Faultrier de Corvol, then a major and future colonel of the regiment. Also mentioned are de Villiers and Le Gaucher, the latter having been wounded at the Battle of Villinghausen in 1761 during the Seven Years’ War.

The document was drawn up under the command of Gédéon Le Duchat d’Ouderne, the first colonel of the Metz Regiment upon its official creation in 1765. Several of the officers listed would go on to serve in the French campaigns in the West Indies and America.

Contemporary full brown calfskin binding. Covers framed with gilt fillets and adorned with fleurons at the corners; decorated and titled ribbed spine; marbled endpapers; and preserved ribbon bookmark.

The binding is heavily worn, showing scuffing, missing leather, worn corners, and a weakened spine, joints, and seams. There are some stains and signs of wear on the pages. The printed tables and handwritten inscriptions remain legible.

An 18th-century French military document compiling the nominal roll and order of battle of the Metz Regiment prior to the subsequent participation of several of its officers in the American War of Independence.

Dimensions: 12 × 8 cm.