The Banquet of the Gunners: How France Invented Artillery

Before Napoleon's cannon, before the Sun King's sieges, France had to learn how to shoot straight. This episode follows the strange and bloody story of how a medieval king turned a bunch of rowdy gunners into the world's first professional artillery corps. We meet the Bureau brothers, two self-taught engineers who gave Charles VII the edge at Formigny and Castillon — battles that ended the Hundred Years' War. We look at the culverin, the bombard, and the first siege trains. We explore why French kings struggled to control their own gunsmiths, and how Louis XI tried to centralize production. We also touch on the dark side of the new technology: the first mass-produced weapons, the first arms dealers, and the moral questions that followed. From the iron mines of Burgundy to the walls of Constantinople, this is the untold story of the men who made French artillery the terror of Europe. #FrenchArtillery #BureauBrothers #CharlesVII #HundredYearsWar #Castillon #Formigny #Culverin #Bombard #SiegeTrain #LouisXI #MedievalWeapons #Ordnance #Gunpowder #MilitaryHistory #France #History #FexingoHistory #WeaponsTech Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo