WildCattle, your analyze is perfect.
It is a common error to despise French gunsmithing ability, especially from Anglo-Saxon.
Indeed we don’t have top names so prestigious as our British friends, even if a “Aiglon” sidelocks s/s from Granger makes any modern made H&H or current Purdey cry their eyes out…
French gunsmithing was often innovative and even if we should not forget that Nicolas Boutet and the Factory of Versailles produced exceptional masterpieces at their time, names as those of Lepage, Potet, Flobert, Lefaucheux, Lebel, and others are still present in the history.
French always chose the pragmatism and contrary to many others preferred to invent that to copy. The smokeless powder of the engineer Veille is a French invention, the first high speed small caliber cartridges of Daudeteau or Lebel also, the first gaz-powered automatic shotgun of Clair brothers also…like the first tanks or our 75 canon too often copied....
The Darne looks like no other one, the dovetailed chopper lump barrels of the MF Ideal were without competitor and we owe to the true to recognize that Chapuis has invented the popular express double rifle, making available to the common hunter a weapon reserved for the elite.
No, we do not have to be ashamed, there is in Europe other peoples who speak a lot and make much less!

DORLEAC
www.dorleac-dorleac.com