8mm MERVEILLEUX

Research notes

This was also one of the early French palm-squeezed pocket pistols based on the original Jacques Edmond Turbiaux design. The Merveilleux was designed by French firearm technician Jacques Rouchouse, who succeeded Félix Escoffier who was the manager of the Imperial Weapons Factory in Saint-Étienne at the time. He filed an original patent on April 19, 1889, for his first palm pistol design, but from what could be found in available records on the internet, no pistol was ever manufactured based on this patent, in which Jacques Rouchouse would seem to protect more of an idea than a prototype. An addendum to the original patent was filed on April 18, 1890, with a more substantial description of the original idea. He launched his Le Merveilleux (Wonderful) pistol in 1892, manufactured by Etablissements Rouchouse & Cie and again filed an addendum to the original patent on January 29, 1897. The Merveilleux was sold in France via the Saint-Étienne agencies and throughout Europe via the Alfa catalogue. (Erlmeier, Brandt Ref. 92A).