In 1809, the French army had a distinctive fatigue cap known as a bonnet de police that was worn by all the services of the army including the cavalry and artillery. I hadn’t seen any 10mm figures with a bonnet de police so I thought that if I modelled one perhaps it would be a 10mm first. I cut the shako off a Pendraken French line fusilier and modelled a cap with putty. The upper part of the cap was usually worn looped over and the tassel at the end brought to the front to hang down over the front of the cap. The tassel was red on fusiliers’ and grenadiers’ caps while volitgeurs’ were green. This was the type of fatigue cap worn in the French army before the introduction of the ‘Pokalem’ cap later in the Napoleonic Wars. First time round, I mistakenly thought the rear of the cap was the same as the front (see right). It took some digging to find images of the back of the cap but when I did, I just had to amend my modelling and repaint.

French Line Infantryman in Fatigue Cap

I thought the addition of an infantryman in a bonnet de police  would add something of a campaign look to a French infantry unit. I wanted some French infantry units to have a campaign, rag-tag appearance so I also added a greatcoat roll to a Pendraken French line officer with a bit of modelling putty and gave a few infantrymen cooking pots on their back- packs. I combined these figures together with some greatcoated infantry with a few regulars for a 12-figure campaign-look battalion.
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