The dreadful bludgeon stick
This is what we can read in "Lecture pour tous" of 1907
:
 "Times are troubled. The dreadful
bludgeon stick of the Incroyables appears; a heavy gnarled and uneven bludgeon,
that twists in spiral, rigged up with a cat gut and sometimes concealing a
sword blade."
"This brief and tragic dialogue has many times been recalled. A
"sans-culotte", in the street, shout out with insolence to a Muscadin, all
black dressed, about his strange appearance: "For whom are you in mourning,
citizen? - For you, my boy! " And the "sans-culotte", the head split, rolled
along the gutter. "
 
The Muscadin reaction, in 1795, gave us
twisted Canes made of steel, or of wood, kind of long cork-screw, like a
rifle's switch, adequate to attack the Jacobins.
On the right typical Muscadin's Canes.
On the left, this natural sculpture slightly worked. Height 92
cm. And this other, on the right, fully sculpted. Height nearly 110 cm.
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Apart from the steel Canes, the Muscadins hold tremendous
bludgeons, that do not disdain, hoever, the ornaments. The Incroyables of the
Directoire will handle the club twisted in spiral, rough, heavy, unsightly, and
considered however as the essential accessory of the dandy, who twirl it while
walking. In "Musée de la mode et du costume: indispensables accessoires"
1983.
Let's discover two rare bludgeon sticks in the next
room. |
