French skirmishers in the Revolutionary Wars?

[Prince of Darkness]

The art of musket-armed skirmishing began in the 1740s with the rise of Austrian Pandours. Line vs. Line shootout combat was still the main way of battle, though, until the rise of Napoleon who introduce mass skirmishing tactics with voltigeurs and chasseurs. Am I right?
Back to topic, I'm curious about the legere regiments of France during the Revolutionary Wars, did these regiments exist already in the Bourbon period, or raised by revolutionary generals? Their performance comparing to other nations' skirmishers in that time? Uniforms? Weapons? Do they have shoes?

[Keyser]

The art of musket-armed skirmishing began in the 1740s with the rise of Austrian Pandours. Line vs. Line shootout combat was still the main way of battle, though, until the rise of Napoleon who introduce mass skirmishing tactics with voltigeurs and chasseurs. Am I right?
Back to topic, I'm curious about the legere regiments of France during the Revolutionary Wars, did these regiments exist already in the Bourbon period, or raised by revolutionary generals? Their performance comparing to other nations' skirmishers in that time? Uniforms? Weapons? Do they have shoes?

Légère regiments existed in the late bourbon army. The former free corps of light troops were reorganised several time into regular units of light infantry after the seven years war until the advent of the french revolution.
They were uniformed pretty much like the chasseurs are in the italian campaign iirc.

The new thing during the french revolution was the use of mass skirmishing tactic by line troops too.

[Clodius]

There were 12 battalions of chasseurs a pied in the Royalist army which were reinforced by many volunteer units and eventually amalgamated with them into 22 demi-brigades de legere.

However the French army trained all its infantry to fight either in skirmish order or in line or column - so its light regiments were essentially rather superior line infantry.

[Prince of Essling]

Following is extracted from Osprey’s “Napoleon’s Light Infantry”, Knotel’s “Uniforms of the World 1700-1937”, Pivka’s “Armies of the Napoleonic wars” and Haythornwaite’s “Napoleonic Source Book”.

The French like many 18th century armies had formed light infantry corps as early as 1743-44, though until the 1780s they were either volunteer corps adept (at least in theory) as skirmishers or as part of units organised as legions. These legions were broken up in 1776 with the companies of chasseurs remaining in existence until 1778. (Though according to Knotel's "Uniforms of the World 1700-1937" in 1776 all French infantry regiments were ordered to have a chasseur company.) Six chasseur (light infantry) battalions were formed in 1784 which were attached to six regiments of Chasseurs à Cheval. Each battalion comprised 4 companies of 6 officers and 79 men. In 1788 they were separated from the cavalry and increased to 12 battalions named in order respectively from 1 to 12 Chasseurs royaux de Dauphiné, royaux de Provence, royaux Corses, Corses, calibres, Bretons, d’Auvergne, des Vosges, des Cévernes, des Gevaudon, des Ardennes and du Roussillon. Each battalion comprised 6 companies of 6 officers and 102 men. Knotel & Pivka say in 1789 they were formed into 14 battalions, which were named demi-brigades légère in 1794 and evolved into some of the regiments légère.

In 1784 the Chasseurs wore green coatees with various coloured distinctions, buff waistcoats and breeches and hats. In that year a distinctive type of shoulder strap was introduced. the coloured lapels were replaced with green ones in 1788. The distinctive colours were red, yellow, pink, carmine. Each 3 battalions had one colour, the first had it on collar and cuffs, the second only on the cuffs, and the third only on the collar. From 1791 the lapels were piped in the facing colour. The hats were superceded by a helmet. See uniform pictures and facings etc at
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