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François-Henri Marquis and his Revolver Modèle de 1862

François-Henri Marquis was among the lucky few of the 19th century's France to have a lot of money and not a lot to do with it. This pushed him to study many domains, including engineering which soon became a passion. From trains, steamers and balloons to machine-tools and mining, his mind wandered everywhere it could until he found himself a vocation for firearms. "J'armerai la France entière" ("I shall weaponize the whole France") he regularly said to his friends who questioned him about his endeavors. In practice though, most of his work ended in darkened paper thrown to the bin and a large drawing table punched manifold. That was until a travel to the United States of America in 1861. There he witnessed a demonstration of the Savage lever action revolver that was soon to equip the U.S. Navy. According to the legend, he jumped on a piece of paper as soon as he arrived at his hotel and never left it until the transatlantic liner dropped him back at Brest, in France. There, in 1862, with the collaboration of Etienne Delorme, a Parisian gunsmith, he set up a small shop to put his ideas into practice. After a few handmade iterations and prototypes, the Modèle de 1862 Marquis revolver in its definitive form was born. Decided to settle a fortune that, he assumed, could only grow with this undoubtedly fantastic and handy revolver, he poured most of his money into setting an assembly line on the outskirts of France's capital. Sadly for him, he misjudged the colossal task it was to find a place in the already quite crowded European gun industry.

The lever action revolver he devised was all but suited to the market. It was a large, expensive, and complex gun firing a wimpy paper cartridge. The mechanism was prone to failure and a nightmare to clean. The arrival of Colt revolvers and affordable (though of dubious quality) copies of them only pushed him closer to the edge. By 1965, he who wanted his weapons to flood France had only sold a little over two hundred pistols, mostly to firearm curiosity enthusiasts. All of his attempts at attracting the various European armies failed miserably and his ultimate gamble, trying to make a room for himself on the American market, only netted him less than a dozen more sales, his weapon equally unsuited to the harsh reality of the time. This lead our man down the path of depression with alcohol and prostitutes waiting at every turn. The 27th of July 1967, entangled in a scandal involving a well-known actress, crippled by debts and without a Franc left in his pockets, François-Henri Marquis resolved to suicide rather than bankruptcy and further shame. Ultimate irony of fate, he was found hanged in his office with one of his revolvers lying on his desk, jammed.

A total of 354 of these weapons were built including prototypes. Extremely rare nowadays due to their fragility and the loss of many of them thrown into the heat of the Franco-Prussian war and Paris Commune as last ditch weapons, they are prized by collectors as exotic revolvers and display of fine French craftsmanship.