Pair of flintlock pocket pistols by Boutet Directeur Artiste - Lot 42

Pair of flintlock pocket pistols by Boutet Directeur Artiste at the Manufacture de Versailles, forced bullet model with hand unscrewable barrel, case finely engraved with chimeric animals and hunting allegories, retractable triggers engraved with antique-style goddesses, swan-neck hammer with engraved stone clamp, cover-bassinet engraved with country motifs and palms, case signed on the rampart "Boutet Directeur Artiste" and on either side of the hammer "Manufacture à Versailles", flat, nielloed and silver-inlaid goutte d'eau stock with frieze and urn motifs, perfect mechanisms, BE-TBE, LT 135 mm, France Directoire period, category D § e). Family provenance. Pistols belonging to Jean-Antoine de Bry (1760-1834). A letter from Nicolas Boutet, director of the Manufacture de Versailles, recently unearthed from the family archives, has established that this pair of pistols was made for Joseph-Antoine de Bry, who was successively: deputy of the Legislative Assembly, then of the National Convention. Having changed his name to "Debry" to avoid the suspicion that the particle could arouse, he sat on the Comité de Salut Public and voted for the death of Louis XVI. In 1794, he joined the Thermidorian reaction and became a member of the Comité de Sûreté Générale. Under the Directoire, he sat as a deputy for Aisne on the Conseil des Cinq Cents, of which he was elected president in 1796. Appointed Minister Plenipotentiary at the Congress of Rastatt, he continued his career by being named Director. During the Tuscan campaign (1799), he narrowly escaped death after his carriage was attacked by a party of Hungarian cavalrymen, who killed his two companions, Claude Roberjot and Antoine Bonner d'Alco, and seriously wounded Debry. He supported the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire An VIII, which brought Bonaparte to power and ensured that the Aisne authorities rallied to the new regime. Appointed Prefect of Doubs, then raised to the rank of Baron d'Empire, he was dismissed under the First Restoration and had to go into exile in Belgium, where he remained until Louis Philippe came to power in 1830, allowing some of the exiles to return to France. Debry died four years after his return from exile, and is buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery. Expert Hervé MATOUS