Mitrailleuse
A mitrailleuse (; from French "mitraille", "grapeshot") is a type of volley gun with multiple barrels of rifle calibre that can fire either multiple rounds at once or several rounds in rapid succession. The earliest true mitrailleuse was invented in 1851 by Belgian Army captain Fafschamps, 10 years before the advent of the Gatling gun. It was followed by the Belgian Montigny mitrailleuse in 1863. Then the French 25 barrel ""Canon à Balles"", better known as the Reffye "mitrailleuse", was adopted in great secrecy in 1866. It became the first rapid-firing weapon deployed as standard equipment by any army in a major conflict when it was used during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. A steel block containing twenty-five 13 mm (.51 calibre) centre-fire cartridges was locked against the breech before firing. With the rotation of a crank, the 25 rounds were discharged in rapid succession. The sustainable firing rate of the Reffye mitrailleuse was 100 rounds per minute. The maximum effective range of the Reffye "mitrailleuse" was about 2000 yards; a distance which placed their batteries beyond the reach of Prussian Dreyse needle rifle fire. Reffye mitrailleuses were deployed in six gun batteries and were manned by artillery personnel. They were not infantry support weapons, but rather a form of special artillery.
Jean Samuel Pauly
Whilst in Paris, Pauly had maintained contact with the weapon manufacturer of Saint-Étienne; using the title "Colonel Jean Samuel Pauly", he established a gunsmith workshop where he designed an automatic bridge and developed mercury fulminate platina. In 1808, in association with French gunsmith François Prélat, Pauly created the first fully self-contained cartridges ; these incorporated a copper base with integrated potassium chlorate primer powder (the major innovation of Pauly), a round bullet and either brass or paper casing. Unlike later cartridges, the case walls didn't provide obturation as the cartridge was loaded through the breech and fired with a needle or a pin; this needle-activated central-fire breech-loading gun would become a major feature of firearms thereafter, and in 1809 Pauly employed the German Johann Nikolaus von Dreyse who would later become the inventor of the famous Dreyse rifle. The corresponding firearm was also developed by Pauly, who made an improved version which was protected by a patent on 29 September 1812, and the cartridge was further improved by the French gunsmith Casimir Lefaucheux in 1836.
It is reported that Napoleon himself said of Pauly's weapons: "Inventions that precede their time remain untapped until general knowledge has reached the same level."