CARTOUCHE, in the military art, a case of wood, about three inches thick at the bottom, girt with marline, and containing about 400 musket balls, besides six or eight iron balls of a pound weight, to be fired from a howitzer, for the defence of a pass, &c.
A cartouche is sometimes made of a globular form, and filled with a ball of a pound weight: sometimes it is made for guns, and filled with balls of half or a quarter of a pound weight (according to the size of the gun), tied in the form of a bunch of grapes on a tompon of wood, and coated over. Cartouche likewise denotes a portable box for charges. (See CARTRIDGE-BOX.) Also a military pass given to a soldier going on furlough.