REPOSITORY, a place or repertory, in which any thing is preserved. Thus the British Repository at Woolwich, contains models of every sort of warlike stores, weapons, and fortification: whether invented by officers of the army or civilians, as well of other nations as of Britain, receipts being given to preserve the title to the inventor. The British Repository is indebted to the ingenuity of colonel Congreve, for some of its most useful and important instruments of escalade, fortification, and gunnery.
REPOUSSER, Fr. to drive back, to repel.
REPOUSSOIRS, Fr. Drivers, chissels.
Repoussoir, Fr. a small stick which artificers and fire-workers use in making fire pots and other works.
REPRESAILLES, Fr. Reprisals.
REPRIMAND, a slighter kind of punishment sometimes inflicted on officers and non-commissioned officers. It consists in reproving or reprimanding them at the head of their respective regiments, troop, or company, as the cases may be. A reprimand is sometimes inserted in the orderly books.
REQUISITION, (réquisition, Fr.) A term peculiarly used by the French during the course of their revolution, and applicable to most nations in its general import. It signifies the act of exacting either men or things for the public service. Hence—Denrées, marchandises mises en réquisition; necessaries of life, goods, &c. put in a state of requisition, or subject to be disposed of for the common good at a fixed price.
Jeunes gens de la Requisition, Fr. Young men required or called upon to serve in the army.
REQUISITIONNAIRE, Fr. A person liable to be put in a state of requisition.
RESERVE, corps de réserve, Fr. any select body of troops posted by a general out of the first line of action, to answer some specific or critical purpose, in the day of battle. The French likewise call that body a corps de réserve, which is composed of the staff of the army, and moves with the commander in chief, from whom it receives the parole or word; but in every other respect it is governed by its own general.