Founded in 1625, the Régiment de Touraine was a French infantry regiment raised in the province of

Touraine Touraine (; ) is one of the traditional provinces of France. Its capital was Tours. During the political reorganization of French territory in 1790, Touraine was divided between the departments of Indre-et-Loire, :Loir-et-Cher, Indre and Vien ...

Origins

At the end of 1624, the Protestant stronghold of

La Rochelle La Rochelle (, , ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''La Rochéle''; oc, La Rochèla ) is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department. Wi ...

sent an expedition and besieged

Port Louis Port Louis (french: Port-Louis; mfe, label= Mauritian Creole, Polwi or , ) is the capital city of Mauritius. It is mainly located in the Port Louis District, with a small western part in the Black River District. Port Louis is the country's e ...

Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period ...

. As no troops were stationed in this province at this time,

Louis XIII Louis XIII (; sometimes called the Just; 27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown ...

sent Marshal Bassompierre, which, from

Angers Angers (, , ) is a city in western France, about southwest of Paris. It is the prefecture of the Maine-et-Loire department and was the capital of the province of Anjou until the French Revolution. The inhabitants of both the city and the pr ...

, urged Baron du Plessis-Joigny, governor of this city, to create an infantry regiment. The Protestant expedition on Port-Louis was cancelled before the arrival of the newly raised regiment, but it victoriously took part to the siege of the rebellious city between 1627 and 1628. In May 1636 the regiment received the name of ''Touraine'' and its regimental flags. During the

Fronde The Fronde () was a series of civil wars in France between 1648 and 1653, occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War, which had begun in 1635. King Louis XIV confronted the combined opposition of the princes, the nobility, the law cour ...

the colonels took advantage of the weakening of royal authority and did away with the provincial title of their regiments. Subsequently, the Touraine regiment appeared as the ''Régiment d'Amboise'', ''de Kercado'' or ''de Chambellay'' according to the name of its colonel.

Franco-Spanish War

During the Franco-Spanish War, the Regiment de Touraine participated to the Italian campaign where it successfully attacked Spanish possessions in Northern Italy, including

Ceva Ceva, the ancient Ceba, is a small Italian town in the province of Cuneo, region of Piedmont, east of Cuneo. It lies on the right bank of the Tanaro on a wedge of land between that river and the Cevetta stream. History In the pre-Roman period t ...

Pianezza Pianezza is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Turin in the Italian region Piedmont, located about northwest of Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cu ...

, Mondovì and took part to the famous

siege of Turin The siege of Turin took place from June to September 1706, during the War of the Spanish Succession, when a French army led by Louis de la Feuillade besieged the Savoyard capital of Turin. The campaign by Prince Eugene of Savoy that led to i ...

Franco-Dutch War and War of the Reunions

After

Turenne Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne (11 September 161127 July 1675), commonly known as Turenne , was a French general and one of only six Marshals to have been promoted Marshal General of France. The most illustrious member of the ...

's death, the regiment participated to the siege of Valenciennes (1676-1677) the

Battle of Cassel (1677) The Battle of Cassel, also known as the Battle of Peene, took place on 11 April 1677 during the Franco-Dutch War, near Cassel, west of Saint-Omer. A French army commanded by the duc de Luxembourg defeated a combined Dutch–Spanish force unde ...

and the

Siege of Luxembourg (1684) The siege of Luxembourg, in which Louis XIV of France (husband of Maria Theresa of Spain) laid siege to the Spanish-controlled Fortress of Luxembourg from 27 April to 7 June 1684, was the most significant confrontation between France and Spain of ...

Nine Years War

War of the Spanish Succession

War of the Polish Succession

War of the Austrian Succession

The regiment was present at the battle of Fontenoy 1745 and the sieges of Tournai, Termonde and Ath. In 1746 it fought at the battle of Rocoux and the siege of Namur. In 1747 it was at the

battle of Lauffeld The Battle of Lauffeld, variously known as Lafelt, Laffeld, Lawfeld, Lawfeldt, Maastricht, or Val, took place on 2 July 1747, between Tongeren in modern Belgium, and the Dutch city of Maastricht. Part of the War of the Austrian Succession, a Fr ...

and participated at the siege of

Bergen op Zoom Bergen op Zoom (; called ''Berrege'' in the local dialect) is a municipality and a city located in the south of the Netherlands. Etymology The city was built on a place where two types of soil meet: sandy soil and marine clay. The sandy soil ...

. It was at the siege of Maastricht in 1748.

Seven Years' War

In 1757 Touraine fought at

battle of Hastenbeck The Battle of Hastenbeck (26 July 1757) was fought as part of the Invasion of Hanover during the Seven Years' War between the allied forces of Hanover, Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel) and Brunswick, and the French. The allies were defeated by ...

. It was at the

battle of Krefeld The Battle of Krefeld (sometimes referred to by its French name of Créfeld) was a battle fought at Krefeld near the Rhine on 23 June 1758 between a Prussian- Hanoverian army and a French army during the Seven Years' War. Background The H ...

in 1758. The regiment was present at the battle of Minden in 1759 and the siege of Mǚnster. It fought at

Warburg Warburg (; Westphalian: ''Warberich'' or ''Warborg'') is a town in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, central Germany on the river Diemel near the three-state point shared by Hessen, Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. It is in Höxter distri ...

in 1760, covering the retreat of the army.Susane, Louis, ''Histoire de l'infanterie française, Volume 3'', Paris, 1876, pp.376–377.

American Revolutionary War

The regiment, commanded by Vicomte de Poudeux, was among forces under Saint Simon brought from the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

to Yorktown. Régiment de Touraine principal engagements: Yorktown ; St Christophe ; Les Saintes.

French Revolution

In 1791, the provincial names of the French regiments were abolished and a number was assigned to each of them. Thus the regiment of Touraine became the 33rd line infantry regiment.

Gallery

File:Touraine inf 1720.png, Uniform of a fusilier of the Régiment de Touraine in 1720 File:Touraine 34RI 1779.png, Uniform of a fusilier of the Régiment de Touraine in 1779. File:Jean Thurel 1788 (1804), par Antoine Vestier.jpg, Jean Thurel, in 1788, the "oldest soldier of Europe" in his uniform of fusilier of the Touraine Regiment with his three veteran medals and his

Légion d'Honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...

(added to the painting in 1804), painting by

Antoine Vestier Antoine Vestier (1740 – 24 December 1824) was a French miniaturist and painter of portraits, born at Avallon in Burgundy, who trained in the atelier of Jean-Baptiste Pierre. He showed his work at the Salon de la Correspondance, Paris, before ...

References

{{reflist, 2 Military units and formations of France in the American Revolutionary War Military units and formations established in 1625 Military units and formations disestablished in 1791 Line infantry regiments of the Ancien Régime