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Montigny approached the French Army with his gun for the purpose of a sale in 1863, and Napoleon III showed interest in it; with approximately 200 examples made known as the “Reffye Mitrailleuse”, a 25-barrel variant fired through the use of a crank and chambered in 13mm, manufactured in secret under French supervision for the French Army and used in the Franco-Prussian War. The concept was still very new in terms of how to effectively utilize weapons such as this, and the French commanders chose to use them like artillery, firing at long range where they were found to be inaccurate and underpowered in that role. They were outperformed by the Prussian Krupp artillery, which would lend to the idea
in Europe as a whole that “machine guns” (including Gatling guns of the time) were typically not as effective as artillery pieces; not to be effectively utilized until World War I with the widespread use of Maxim machine guns on either side of the trenches (some Montigny guns also saw limited use in a defense role as late as World War I!).
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