Thanks. It looks pretty much like the middle one with the sling attachments in those exact locations, middle band and in the butt stock. But, the pan is iron, not brass and the middle band is brass as well as the front band as on yours. Also the trigger guard is iron (or steel). The barrel length is 25 inches, overall length is 40 inches. How does that compare to yours. On mine the barrel protrudes 3 and 1/3 inches from the front band and there is a small sight on the top of the barrel near the muzzle. I think it is a braised brass sight. There does not seem to be a bayonet lug but there may have been one at one time because underneath the barrel about an inch from the muzzle is a rectangular cut indented into the barrel. The rammer is a button type. I cannot quite see if yours has a bayonet lug and the shape of the rammer tip. I may have the model number wrong. What model is yours? Is your an An IX variant of the 1777? I am thinking low cost Belgian armory knock off some French model. No date anywhere that I can find and nothing legible inside the lock. sorry, I have no idea how to post images.
Bayonets were part of the weaponry carried by French cavalrymen and there are paintings of troopers on guard duty, both mounted and dismounted, with bayonets fixed. Both my musketoons have bayonet lugs and the Hussar musketoon (the one that looks cut down but isn't - it's made that way) had a longer-than-usual bayonet to compensate for the relative shortness of the musketoon. (They're very rare today, so I don't have one!) Brass pans are a feature of the M.1777's that were carried over as long as flintlocks were regulation, but during the Revolution and a couple of times during Napoleon's wars firearms became scarce and "parts guns" were created in the arsenals by cobbling together parts from earlier models. Until 1814, Belgium WAS France, so any regulation arms made there (like the musket at top marked
Mfture Imple a' Liege) corresponded to those made in the rest of France.
This is known as
Musqueton Mlle. An IX or "Year 9," meaning that many years since the French Revolution - which the French date from 1792 and the abolition of the monarchy rather than the 1789 fall of the Bastille - or in other words 1801; it was in most ways identical to the earlier
M.1777 and another intermediate Revolutionary model. The barrel is dated on the tang
1812 and there is a cherrywood plug in the buttstock stamped
E F (French Empire) surrounded by a circular stamp with the date
1813. It was made in the Imperial armory at Charleville and is so marked on the lockplate.
Originally these were manufactured with a carbine bar and ring to attach them to the cavalryman's over-the-shoulder belt sling and mine is now missing that feature, but it was like the one on the Hussar musketoon below. This is possibly because these were eventually issued to such non-mounted personnel as bandsmen, medics, and even light infantry, especially when regular-length infantry muskets were in short supply. (That's why they were made with the loops for a short sling too.) These were replaced by newer post-Napoleonic models but remained in armories; some were eventually converted to percussion.
Bringing the