A RARE SEVEN YEARS' WAR FRENCH REGULATION HUSSARS' SABRE, À LA HONGROISE, OF THE REGIMENT DE BERCHINŸ, CIRCA 1752-67 with long slender curved blade double-edged towards the point, cut with a pair of narrow fullers bordering the greater central portion of the back-edge, etched with the royal arms of France below the figure of a hussar on both sides towards the base, with cartouches enclosing the inscriptions "Regiment de Berchinÿ" on one face and "Vive le Roÿ" on the other, and the back-edge etched with the signature of the fourbisseur "Berger Marchand Fourbisseur a Strasborg"(sic), brass hilt of flat bars with bevelled edges, including rounded double langets on both sides, cap pommel with a brass drop-shaped washer under the tang button, original grip bound with leather over cords, with a single brass-capped rivet on either side, fitted with back-piece, and in un-restored condition throughout 92.5 cm; 36 3/8 in blade This sabre conforms to the pattern set out in the French regulations for Hussars on 15th May 1752. The Berchiny Hussar regiment was raised in 1719 by a Hungarian Lieutenant, Count Ladislas Ignace de Berchenÿ (1689-1778). Three squadrons of the regiment, comprising 65 officers and 470 men, fought in the German campaign of 1743. During the Seven Years' War four squadrons of the regiment formed a part of the Light Troops of the Right Reserve of the French army of the Lower Rhine, June 1758-May 1760, and fought with distinction. See Pétard 1999, Vol. I, no.57a, pp. 76-7. For a variant de Berchinÿ sabre, its blade etched in a near-identical manner, see Blondieau 2002, p.91.