The Siege of Yorktown was not a single battle but a three-week formal siege — the only one of the war that followed strict eighteenth-century European siege protocol. The Allied armies arrived at Yorktown on September 28, 1781; opened the first parallel of trenches on October 6; opened the second parallel — closer to the British works — on October 11; and assaulted the two forward redoubts on the night of October 14. Cornwallis surrendered on the 19th. Through those three weeks the Royal Deux-Ponts was in the siege lines, taking its turn in the trenches, exchanging musket fire with the British at close range, and getting ready for the assault that would come. "Make ready" — the French command was "apprêtez vos armes" — was practiced and re-practiced through those weeks, until the order at the moment of the assault required no thought at all.

This figure shows a Royal Deux-Ponts private at the "Make Ready" / "apprêtez vos armes" command — musket held vertical with both hands, lock cocked, weapon a fraction of a second from being lowered to the firing position. He wears the regiment's 1779 ordonnance uniform: blue coat with yellow facings, white cross-belts and waistcoat, white breeches, the bicorne with green plume that distinguished the regiment in the smoke of an engagement. He pairs with the Royal Deux-Ponts standing firing private (the next moment, when the command "feu!" brought the musket down and the trigger), the Royal Deux-Ponts officer (Captain von Closen), and the British 43rd Foot Make Ready — the British equivalent across the lines, executing the same step in the same instant in his own army's drill.

1/30 scale (60mm), matte-painted, single figure boxed. Catalog number 16185. As with the rest of the W. Britain modern range, the painting is photographic-quality detail intended to read well in dioramas and display cases.