Dragoon

Dragoon (pronounced druh-goon)

(1) In historic weaponry, a synonym of dragon (a type of musket with a short, large-calibre barrel and a flared muzzle), the name based on the way the mythical dragons belched fire.

(2) A European cavalryman of a heavily armed troop (mostly obsolete although some historic associations remain in military formations); historically an infantryman armed with a dragoon musket who fought both on horseback and on foot.

(3) A member of a military unit with such traditions (now mostly restricted to the British Army).

(4) A domestic fancy pigeon (originally a cross between a horseman and a tumbler and sometimes with initial capital).

(5) In the history of France, to subject a Huguenot to the dragonnades (a late seventeenth century policy instituted by Louis XIV of France to intimidate Protestant Huguenots to convert to Roman Catholicism by billeting dragoons in their homes to abuse them and destroy or steal their possessions).

(6) By extension, a man with a fierce or unrefined manner (historically thought “dragoon-like”) (now rare).

(7) By extension, (usually as “dragoon into”) to force (someone) into doing something through harassment and intimidation; to coerce; to force by oppressive measures.

(8) Following the use in France, the practice of forcing civilians into military service (applied particularly to Royal Navy press-gangs until 1815 although it was not an unknown form of “recruitment” by the army).

1615-1625 (some sources noting it appeared in military firearms manuals as early as 1804 but general use was at least a decade hence): From the French dragon (dragon (mythological creature); type of cavalry soldier, dragoon), the latter referring to a soldier armed with the firearm of the same name although in the context of ballistics the word dragoon was originally applied to the pistol hammer (the use based on the shape).  The ultimate source was the Latin dracō (dragon; kind of serpent or snake), from the Ancient Greek δρᾰ́κων (drákōn) which may have been from δέρκομαι (dérkomai) (to see, clearly to see (in the sense of something staring)), from the primitive Indo-European derḱ- (to see).  The verb use was derived from the noun, from the French dragooner, originally in the sense of “to force someone into doing something; to coerce; to torment (also “to torment one’s self)), the construct being dragon + -er (the suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs).  Dragoon is a noun & verb, dragooner dragoonage, dragoonable & dragonnade are nouns and dragooned & dragooning are verbs; the noun plural is dragoons.  The adjectives dragonish & dragoonesque are non-standard.

Louis XIV, the Huguenots and dragoonnades

The noun use of “dragoon” describing both musket and the soldiers who carried them had been in use for some six decades before becoming a verb.  In 1685, Louis XIV (1638–1715; le Roi Soleil (the Sun King), King of France 1643-1715) issued the Edict of Nantes which revoked his grandfathers decree of toleration which had granted social and economic rights to the minority Huguenot population, something which had far-reaching adverse consequences for France but which was at the time widely popular and still so judging the fawning obituaries which appeared thirty years later at the king’s funeral.  More realistic was Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet; 1694–1778), a fair judge of the rule of the Bourbons who called the edict: “…one of the greatest calamities of France…” with consequences “…wholly contrary to the purpose in view.”

British Army Dragoons always had famously good hats, sometimes in designer colors.

The enmity towards the Huguenots (then some 10% of the French population) was based on factors familiar in pogroms over the centuries: a hard-working minority whose success manifested in their wealth and domination of some business sectors.  Religious intolerance was of course also an element and with pro-Catholic winds blowing in England, Louis decided it was time for him to assert himself in his tiresome squabble with Innocent XI (1611-1689; pope 1676-1689) and “...show himself the champion of orthodoxy, reaffirming the ancient French title of ‘Most Christian King’”.  The renewed persecution had actually begun a few years earlier with church services banned, denominational schools closed and the increasing exclusion from economic activity enforced but just as similar moves by the Nazis against the Jews of Germany would assume their own social inertia and lead to Kristallnacht (literally "crystal night" but better remembered as the "Night of Broken Glass" on 9–10 November 1938) the crackdown in seventeenth century France engendered its own increasing violent brutality.

British Army Corporal of the 2nd Dragoons in full-dress uniform with bearskin hat, circa 1900.

With the personal approval of the king himself, the policy of dragoonnades (the force billeting of Dragoons with Huguenot families) was adopted which would have been bad enough but the Dragoons, an anyway rough and undisciplined crew, were encouraged to behave as viciously as they wished.  Needing little encouragement, assault, rape and vandalism was soon widespread, the point of the policy being (1) to force the Huguenots to leave the country or (1) accept the offer of exemption from billeting on condition of a family converting to Catholicism.  Under the circumstances, few Catholics regarded such conversions as sincere and on doctrinal grounds resented the approach because it implicated the Church in what could be called only sacrilege and perjury.  In 1685, in a masterpiece of Bourbon logic, after hearing of the conversion of some 65,000 over three days in one province alone, Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes on the grounds it was superfluous because there were “no more Huguenots”.

Keeping alive the traditions of the Dragoons’ hats: Lindsay Lohan in Falling for Christmas (Netflix, 2022).

Quite how many Huguenot souls emigrated to Protestant or other more tolerant lands isn’t known but no estimate places the number at less than 100,000.  Those who departed took with them their skills as engineers, artisans, builders, glass makers, shipwrights and a host of other trades, all of which would be now be classified as “dual use” in the sense that they could be applied to civilian or military purposes.  Additionally, some of those leaving were merchants, bookkeepers, lawyers, doctors and other with internationally sought-after skills, the multiplier effect being that the loss to the French economy was to the gain of her enemies including England, Holland and the German states.  In England particularly, the Royal Navy gained much in metallurgy and ship-building skills and as an aside, the arrival of the Huguenots there lead directly to the country switching from wood to coal as a source of thermal energy because, as the new arrivals set up their forges, furnaces and kilns, the depletion of the forests was soon recognized as a threat.  The coal powered economy would provide a platform on which the industrial revolution was built and was the basis of the energy supply for three centuries.

Historians have differed on the extent of the damage all this caused the French economy and military although there does seem to be a consensus most of the early estimates were exaggerated (especially those published in English) but losses to both there were and, as earlier mentioned, this was suffered in conjunction with those of her enemies being afforced.  Of the political damage however there is no doubt, the persecution of the Huguenots assisting the formation of a Protestant coalition between several German states & principalities, Holland and those Huguenots who remained in France, mostly in isolated or mountainous regions, something which some historians maintain was an important component in the forces which over a century would accumulate until unleashed in the violence of the French Revolution (1789).