During a family trip to France this summer, purely by chance, I encountered a number of museums of interest to Napoleonic enthusiasts and well worth including in any holiday itinerary. I will give only a brief idea of what you can see as my time was limited by having a young family in tow. Standing out as a most exciting experience was the Musee de Cavalerie in Saumur. Saumur is a large town on the Loire, a good base for a holiday, after a day visiting the Musee des Blindes (tanks) and the Chateau I dragged the weary family in search of the museum. The Musee de Cavalerie is not signposted, it is located in the Ecole de Cavalerie (not the Cadre Noir) and you just have to approach one of the guards and attempt to converse, who will point you in the direction of one of the duty soldiers. She will need a passport as identification and then you will be escorted by a soldier to the museum, (leaving you to carry baby buggy’s up the steps) this in itself was one of the most exciting points of the holiday for my son. The museum is free, and most of the items of Napoleonic interest are in the first two rooms. These two rooms are exclusively made up from the collection Mr Barbet de Vaux containing a substantial collection from the Revolution to the later part of the 19th Century. The first room contains a large number of swords and sidearms but standing out are the four well preserved cuirasses and helmets (including one with five musket holes), a Horse artillery of the guard uniform, an eagle, 3 Napolenic dragoon guidons and most impressive of all the standard of the 1st guard Grenadiers among many others. The next room contains artifacts from a number of Marshals including one baton. Other rooms and galleries are dedicated to generals of cavalry, the transformation to modern armoured cavalry and the missions of cavalry regiments from the first world war. The labelling in French is simple so that I could make sense of most things with my rudimentary French. The layout and quality of the museum was of a very high standard and kept the family amused for well over an hour. An hour and a half drive away in the Vendee at the Chateau de Gaubretiere, is a display detailing the events of the Vendeen revolt of 1793, unfortunately a good standard of French is required to understand any of the text. Nearby at the Puy de Fou Historical theme park (a great day out for the family and no English tourists) is a graphic recreation of the aforementioned uprising. Further south in the gardens at Tarbres is the Musee d’Hussards with artifacts depicting the history of Hussars (mainly French). These venues are highly recommended for further inspection. Back to Table of Contents -- First Empire #21 Back to First Empire List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 by First Empire. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com