Part 428

REZ-de-chaussée, Fr. The ground floor. This term properly means the surface or floor of any building which is even with the ground on which it is raised. It would be incorrect to say Rez-de chaussée d’une cave, ou du premier étage d’une maison; the ground floor of a cellar, or of the first story of a house.

RHAGOON, Ind. The twelfth month which, in some respect, corresponds with February. It follows the month Magh, which agrees with January.

RHINELAND rod, is a measure of twelve feet, used by all the Dutch engineers.

RHOMBUS, (Rhombe, Fr.) in geometry, an oblique angled parallelogram, or a quadralateral figure whose sides are equal and parallel, but the angles unequal; two of the opposite ones being obtuse, and the other two acute.

RIBAND, Rubande, Ruban, Fr. This word is sometimes written Ribbon. A narrow web of silk which is worn for ornament.

RIBAND cockade. The cockades which are given to recruits, and is commonly called the colors.

RIBAUDE, Fr. Irregular, noisy, ill-mannered. This term is likewise used as a substantive, viz.

Un RIBAUD, Fr. A noisy, ill-mannered fellow. It is an old French word, which at present is seldom spoken in the polished circles of life. In former times, as late indeed as during the reign of Philip Augustus, king of France, it was current without carrying along with it any particular reproach or mark of infamy. The foot guards, who did duty at the palace, were generally called ribauds, from the looseness of their morals; which by degrees grew so very corrupt, that the term, (harmless perhaps at first) was insensibly applied to persons guilty of dishonorable acts. Hence pick-pockets, thieves, cheats, &c. were called ribauds. On which account the provost of the hotel or town house in Paris, was popularly stiled roi des ribands, or provost of ribauds. This phrase prevailed until the reign of Charles the VIth.

RIBAUD, Fr. adj. likewise means lewd, debauched, &c.

Un homme RIBAUD, Une femme RIBAUDE, Fr. A licentious man; a licentious woman.

RIBAUDEQUIN, Fr. A warlike machine or instrument, which the French anciently used. It was made in the form of a bow, containing twelve or fifteen feet in its curve, and was fixed upon the wall of a fortified town, for the purpose of casting out a prodigious javelin, which sometimes killed several men at once.

According to Monstrelet, a French writer, ribaudequin, or ribauderin, signified a sort of garment which was worn by the soldiers when they took the field.

RIBLEURS, Fr. Vagabonds, debauched fellows that run about the streets, or spend their nights in disorderly houses. Soldiers who give themselves up to pillage &c. in war time, are likewise called ribleurs, by way of reproach.

RIBLER, Fr. To ramble, &c. was formerly the verb, and riblerie, the act of rambling, &c. the substantive. Both terms are now obsolete, except among the lower orders.

RICOCHER, Fr. To ricochet, to batter or fire at a place with ricochet shots. The author of a very valuable work entitled, Essai Général de Fortification, et d’Attaque et Defense des places, observes in a note to page 89, vol. I, that in strict analogy, we should say ricocheter; but use, which is above all rules, has made ricocher a technical term, whenever we speak of the ricochets of cannon shot.

Une face RICOCHEE, Fr. The face of a fortification, which is fired at with ricochet shots.

RICOCHET, literally means a bound, a leap, such as a flat piece of stone or slate makes when it is thrown obliquely along the surface of a pool.

RICOCHET, (ricochet, Fr.) in gunnery, is when guns, howitzers, or mortars, are loaded with small charges, and elevated from five to twelve degrees, so that when fired over the parapet, the shot or shell rolls along the opposite rampart. It is called ricochet-firing, and the batteries are likewise called ricochet-batteries. This method of firing out of mortars, was first tried in 1723, at the military school of Strasburgh, and with success. At the battle of Rosbach in 1757, the king of Prussia had several 6-inch mortars made with trunnions, and mounted on travelling carriages, which fired obliquely on the enemy’s lines, and amongst their horse, loaded with eight ounces of powder, and at an elevation of one degree fifteen minutes, which did great execution; for the shells rolling along the lines, with burning fuzes, made the stoutest of the enemy not wait for their bursting. See BATTERY.

RICOCHET firing is not confined to any particular charge or elevation; each must vary according to the distance and difference of level of the object to be fired at; and particularly of the spot on which it is intended the shot shall make the first bound. The smaller the angle is under which a shot is made to ricochet, the longer it will preserve its force and have effect, as it will sink so much the less in the ground on which it bounds; and whose tenacity will of course present so much less resistance to its progress. In the ricochet of a fortification of any kind, the angle of elevation should seldom be less than 10°, to throw the shot over a parapet a little higher than the level of the battery. If the works should be of an extraordinary height, the piece must be removed to such situation, and have such charge, that it can attain its object at this elevation, or at least under that of 13° or 14°, otherwise the shot will not ricochet, and the carriages will suffer very much. The first gun in a ricochet battery should be so placed as to sweep the whole length of the rampart of the enemy’s work, at 3 or 4 feet from the parapet, and the rest should form as small an angle with the parapet as possible. For this purpose the guns should be pointed about 4 fathoms from the face of the work towards the interior. In the ricochet of ordnance in the field, the objects to be fired at being principally infantry and cavalry, the guns should seldom be elevated above 3 degrees; as with greater angles the ball would be apt to bound too high, and defeat the object intended. For ricochet practice, see the different pieces of ordnance, as GUN, MORTAR, and HOWITZER.

Battre en RICOCHET, Fr. To put a sufficient quantity of gunpowder in a piece of ordnance to carry the ball, with effect, into the works that are enfiladed. This sort of firing is generally practised along the whole extent of a face or flank. The celebrated marshal Vauban first invented the mode of firing ricochet-shots. He tried the experiment at the siege of Ath, in 1679.

Battre un rempart à RICOCHET, Fr. To batter a rampart with ricochet shots.

RIDEAU is a rising ground, or eminence, commanding a plain, sometimes almost parallel to the works of a place: it is a great disadvantage to have rideaus near a fortification, which terminate on the counterscarp, especially when the enemy fire from afar: they not only command the place, but facilitate the enemy’s approaches.

RIDER, in artillery carriages, a piece of wood somewhat higher than broad, the length equal to that of the body of the axle-tree, upon which the side pieces rest, in a four-wheel carriage, such as the ammunition waggon, block carriage, and sling waggon.

Rough RIDER. See ROUGH.

RIDING-Master. In the cavalry, an officer whose duty it is to instruct the officers and soldiers in the management of their horses.

To RIFLE, to plunder; to rob.

RIFLE, the thread, ray, or line made in a rifled barrel.

RIFLED gun, RIFLED piece, RIFLED barrel, Arquebuse rayée, Fr. a fire arm which has lines or exiguous canals within its barrel that run in a vermicular direction, and are more or less numerous, or more indented, according to the fancy of the artificer. With respect to the word itself, it does not appear to bear any other analogy to our common acceptation of the verb, than what may be vulgarly applied to the common practices of riflemen. It is, on the contrary, more immediately connected in sense and signification with an old obsolete word to ray; to streak: which comes from the French rayer. The rifled barrel possesses many advantages over the common one; which advantages are attributed to the threads or rays with which it is indented. These threads are sometimes cut in such a manner, that the line which commences on the right side at the breech, terminates on the left at the muzzle; by which means the ball acquires a rotary movement, revolving once and a half round its own axis before it quits the piece, and then boring through the air with a spiral motion. It is well known, that cannon balls and shot out of common barrels are impelled in a line formed by the centre of the ball, and a compound of the projectile force of the explosion acted upon by the air and by gravitation in its course; the ball has a tendency to rise upward to a certain extent after leaving the muzzle of the gun; its particular motion is as if the ball had a transverse axis, and rolled forward in that axis, in the manner that the wheels of a carriage roll; and at the same time continue their progression forward. See Amer. Mil. Lib.