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His personal interest and patronage during the early 17th century helped drive stylistic and technical innovation, and the king’s tastes no doubt influenced the beautiful arms crafted in the period which themselves reflect the broader Baroque artistic movements. During Louis XIII’s reign, his Cabinet d’Armes was kept in the royal quarters of the Louvre.
After his death, his Cabinet d’Armes remained the core of the royal arms collection as it was expanded by subsequent
French kings up until the French
Revolution. He was succeeded
by his young son Louis XIV,
the Sun King, who further
consolidated the power of the
French monarchy, became one
of the most powerful men of
the entire era and today remains
the longest reigning monarch
with 72 years and 110 days as King of France. He embraced
the splendor of French arts, including fine arms, and also took personal interest in the arms of his military, which marked the first significant adoption of bayonets starting with plug bayonets for his fusiliers in 1671 and later the classic socket bayonets for the infantry. He added additional arms to the growing collection started by his father. Under his rule, French influence came to dominate the firearms market in Europe. One can imagine him visiting the Cabinet d’Armes like his father had before him to examine their beauty and mechanical ingenuity.
The royal arms collection was cataloged along with the collection of royal furniture during the reign of Louis XIV. Work began
in 1673 and concluded with 351 entries and over 700 items, including 500 firearms. The collection was inventoried again under Louis XV in 1717 and a third time under Louis XVI in 1775.
The collection moved around in the late 18th century, and it has been said that the Cabinet d’Armes was in the Bastille, the Louvre, or the Garde-Meuble museum established by Louis XVI. In July 1789, revolutionaries pillaged the arsenal in Paris along with many of the gun shops, and are noted as taking serviceable arms from the Garde-Meuble. The remaining items in the collection were transferred in 1797 to the new Museum des Antiques de
la Bibliotheque Nationale which later became the Cabinet des Medailles. The arms and armor were soon moved to the Musee d’Artillerie alongside pieces from the Bastille and other historical arms. However, after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo and the subsequent occupation of Paris, many pieces of historic French arms and armor were “purchased” or looted and sent back to the United Kingdom and Prussia as war trophies.