Edmé Regnier L'Aîné
French All-Steel Flintlock Trap Pistol by Regnier, Early 19th Century
The plain barrel with threaded steel ramrod engaging with a ring mount on the right, box-lock action with stamped maker's name on one side, thumbpiece safety-catch, trigger with roller working against a sprung curved bar operating through the trigger-guard via a tapering bar beneath the barrel which is hooked at the end for attachment to a trip-wire, rounded butt carrying a toothed clamp with wing-headed screw.
Footnote:
For an almost identical example by the same maker and described as a 'chicken thief gun', see Lewis Winant, Firearms Curiosa, pp. 112 and 114, fig. 114
The signature on this pistol is probably that of Edmé Regnier L'Aîné, who was born in Semur-en-Auxois in 1751 and died in Paris in 1825.
He became the inspector of hand firearms production under the Committee of Safety and the instigator of the An IX system.
Subsequently he was appointed the first Director of the Musée d'Artillerie in the cloister of the Church of Saint Thomas d'Asquin, Paris.
He was probably a descendant of the Reyniers (of Dutch origin)
