The Tabatière rifle was a breech-loading rifle of the French Army

French Army

The French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces.As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars, 18,350 part-time reservists and 7,700 Legionnaires. All soldiers are professionals, following the suspension of conscription, voted in...

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The Tabatière system was developed from 1864 as a way to convert numerous muzzle-loading weapons (usually Minié rifle

Minié rifle

The Minié rifle was an important rifle in the 19th century, developed in 1849 following the invention of the Minié ball in 1847 by the French Army captains Claude-Étienne Minié of the Chasseurs d'Orléans and Henri-Gustave Delvigne. The rifle was designed to allow rapid muzzle loading of rifles, an...

s) into breech-loading ones, in a process similar to that of the Snider-Enfield

Snider-Enfield

The British .577 Snider-Enfield was a type of breech loading rifle. The firearm action was invented by the American Jacob Snider, and the Snider-Enfield was one of the most widely used of the Snider varieties. It was adopted by British Army as a conversion system for its ubiquitous Pattern 1853...

 in Great Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

. The name "Tabatière" come from the fact that the breech-loading mechanism looked like a snuff box

Snuff Box

Snuff Box is a BBC Three British dark comedy starring and written by Matt Berry and Rich Fulcher with additional material by Nick Gargano. It first aired on Monday 27 February 2006....

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Most of the conversion work had been accomplished by the time of the Franco-Prussian war

Franco-Prussian War

The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...

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Although the ammunition was a center fire cartridge closely resembling a shortened 12 gauge shotgun shell, this weapon system was recognized as ballistically inferior to the Chassepot

Chassepot

The Chassepot, officially known as Fusil modèle 1866, was a bolt action military breechloading rifle, famous as the arm of the French forces in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and 1871. It replaced an assortment of Minie muzzleloading rifles many of which were converted in 1867 to breech loading...

rifle. Therefore it was essentially used by second line troops and in defensive roles.