Nowadays, Sohlingen is a small village, but for nearly four hundred years it was home to a prestigious cutlery workshop renowned for its tempered steel. One particularity of the workshop was that each production was signed either with the name of the cutler or the furbisher who ordered it. We know very little about Charles Le Conardel; several cutlery-makers and small arms manufacturers in Saint-Lo had the same last name, notably Alphonse Conardel, so Charles was likely a member of the same family. The state of this sabre leads one to think that it was rarely or never used. It was probably a ceremonial piece, perhaps made for the builder of the Aimable Grenot, a friend of his, or one of the ship's two captains.