Tabac Scafferlaty de la Manufacture de Thiebault Hürstel & Cie à Ebersmünster (Bas-Rhin) = [Scafferlaty tobacco from the Thiebault Hürstel & Cie factory in Ebersmünster (Bas-Rhin)]

[French: n.d., 1840. Copper engraving approx. 7¼" x 4¾" on a sheet of mold-made paper approx. 11" x 17¼"; (approx. 19 x 12 cm on a sheet approx. 28 x 44 cm). Scafferlaty Tobacco is a centuries-old firm, still in existence today. "From the time of the Sun King, Louis XIV, until the early 1990s, all tobacco-related activities in France were a State monopoly, and since at least the time of the first emperor Napoleon (beginning of the XIXth century) one of that monopoly's duties was to provide free tobacco to the soldiers in France's armies. "Napoleon thought tobacco was good for soldiers: it kept them awake during guard duty, held them entertained and relaxed during the long waits involved in classic warfare, and, as anyone who has smoked a clay pipe well knows, a lit pipe is a source of warmth and comfort ... It was the corporal's duty to distribute their rations of free tobacco to the troops: hence this type of tobacco [i.e. Scaferlati Caporal] became known as tabac de caporal (corporal's tobacco), a dark, opaque shag known as petit gris (little grey.) Men would go into the service in their teens. They would there learn to smoke. Naturally, after leaving, they would want to keep smoking the same caporal. And this they did, in clays, in the rugged briars of 19th Cent. Saint-Claude, and as cigarettes, shag being suitable roll-your-own material. "The marquis in his hôtel particulier, the banker in his club, would smoke English tobacco, or expensive cigares de La Havanne. But the peasantry, the working class, impecunious students, leftists, counterculturists, artists, bohemians, they all would proudly smoke the coarse, harsh scaferlati, leaving the soigné stuff for the hated bourgeoisie. There is an enormous amount of cultural folklore behind this tobacco" (tobaaccoreviews[dot]com). BnF only in OCLC.