C & T Auctioneers
Lot 179
A Rare Brass Barrelled Flintlock Holster Pistol Designed for Philippe de Bouillon, Prince of Auvergne by Durs Egg c.1796 (the lock is missing), barrel 7” engraved D EGG LONDON with Tower proofs, full stocked, regulation brass mounts, stock fractured, ramrod also missing otherwise the pistol is in good condition. Note:-Philippe d'Auvergne, Prince of Bouillon, 1754-1816, was born on Jersey. He was gazetted a midshipman in the Royal Navy in 1770. In 1773 he served on the sloop Racehorse during during the Admiralty's Artic expedition. He was on active service during the American War of Independence and was captured by the French in 1779. While a prisoner in France he was paroled to Duke Godfrey de La Tour d'Auvergne of Bouillon, who was seeking a worthy candidate for adoption as his natural son was disabled. Paroled in 1780, he resumed service with the navy. In 1787, after geneologists had researched their families connections, Philippe was adopted by the Duke de Bouillon as his heir. In 1783 he was appointed commander of the Channel Islands defense forces headquartered on Jersey, given a small fleet of converted Dutch gunboats and also put in charge of maintaining communications and supplying assistance to the Royalist insurgents in France. After Napoleon was defeated, D'Auvergne attempted to finalize his claims to the Duchy of Bouillon but lost his case in court. Despondent and deeply in debt, he died, supposedly by suicide, in London in 1816. In 1796 the Philippe d'Auvergne Pattern pistol was designed for him and some two hundred pairs were made by Durs Egg and Henry Nock at 48s. per pair. It is not known whether they were intended for the Royalists or whether they were for Bouillon's small naval force. See ‘British Military Firearms 1650-1850’ H L Blackmore, , 1961, p. 64; and H. Kirke, From the Gun Room to the Throne; being the life of Philip d'Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon, 1904.
