beau sabreur

plural beaux sabreurs

1. A gallant warrior; a handsome or dashing adventurer.

   Kneller's portrait shows a handsome, even slightly effeminate young man, arrogant, perhaps petulant, but for many, the ideal beau sabreur.

   2009, John Sadler, Glencoe, Amberley, published 2009, page 66

   4 more examples

   At the last fatal moment he behaved with the courage to be expected from Le beau sabreur, placed on his breast a picture of his wife, refused to have his eyes bandaged, or to use a seat, and received six balls in his head, and fell without a groan.

   1817, anonymous author, The Edinburgh Annual Register for 1815, page 198

   Murat met his fate as became le beau sabreur. He fastened his wife's picture on his breast, refused to have his eyes bandaged, or to use a seat, received six balls through his heart, and met the death he had braved with impunity in the thick of many conflicts, and sought in vain in many others.

   1827, Sir Walter Scott, The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, page 703

   Resembling Murat in personal enterprise and fearlessness, he also resembled that prince of beaux sabreurs in carrying his love of dress into the very field of battle.

   1886 November, Thomas Carlyle, “Field-Marshal Viscount Combermere”, in Fraser's Magazine, volume LXXIV, number CCCCXLIII, page 572

   No longer was she that beau sabreur of suffrage brandishing her sword—for the sheath had outlived the sword as doubtless ... the body had outlived the soul. Contextual note: In the source, "she" is frequently described with masculine (technically neutral) language ("She was a man of the world.")

   1965, Marguerite Young, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, Scribner, page 466