The drummer's gaudy coat was not vanity — it was a uniform of office. In the armies of 18th-century France, drummers wore the royal livery, their coats trimmed with the distinctive lace of the king's household, so a drummer could be recognized at a glance amid the smoke. And he had to be, because the drum was the army's voice: its beats set the pace of the march, signaled the volleys, and ran the daily routine of a fort from reveille to tattoo. A drummer also carried the parley under a flag of truce. In the scattered garrisons of New France, where a single company might hold a fort alone, that steady beat was the thread of order.

W. Britain poses the drummer in mid-stride, sticks working, the drum slung at his hip with its blue shell and fleur-de-lis emblems. His coat is the ornate one — blue with red facings and looped livery lace, a laced tricorne, red waistcoat, white breeches and gaiters. He beats the calls for the whole cluster: the orders of the Compagnies Franches Officer, the assembly around the ensign and the Colonel's Color, and the firing of the marine making ready in the ranks.

W. Britain model 47039. 54mm scale, gloss-finished metal. Single figure with drum on a plain rectangular base. Boxed.