Some current French regiments, related to the French colonial history, still retain cummerbunds as part of their full dress uniform (notably the French Foreign Legion and the Spahis).
In 1951, Moira Lister married Jacques de Gachassin-Lafite Vicomte d’Orthez, a French officer of the Spahis, owner of a champagne vineyard and hero of the Rif War; they had two daughters, Chantal and Christobel.
Between 1916 and 1919 he enlisted as a Spahi (a member of a North African cavalry regiment in the French army), being deployed in Turkey and Syria.
Born in Frashëri village in the District of Përmet, he was part of a family of a declassed Spahi of Ottoman Albania, and the impoverished Bey from Permet.
Promoted Lieutenant-Colonel, he was made chief administrator of Timbuktu; he held this position when he met there in 1898 Captain Paul Voulet, commander of the Voulet-Chanoine Mission marching to Lake Chad, whom he provided him with 70 Senegalese Tirailleurs and 20 spahi cavalry (both colonial troops recruited in West Africa).
The same Persian word reached English via another route in the form of spahi.