Conscription Canes and regional tradition

Although having the same bases everywhere in France, the conscription offers variants from one region to another.

As an example, this characteristic of the Bresse where the conscripts having canes to snuff went round the village offering tobacco while collecting to pay their drinkings.

The conscription changed well but it always exists!

Some details, borrowed from the work "The conscripts" by Michel Bogon (Berger-Levrault Paris 1981):

... Their cane is tricolour, with large spherical head of wood or of metal and their carrier makes it whirl.

From the military point of view, canes and axes are not weapons but between the hands of the conscripts they become it, especially against the enemy communes and districts.

an emulation was established between classes: each one wanted to be made unforgettable by the quality of its musicians or his song, by the address of its carry-canes...