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Originally Posted by Battara
Could the blade originally be Russian in origin? They did do laminated steel. I am having difficulty seeing if the inscription remnants are Cyrillic or Arabic.
If Arabic, then this could indeed be an old Ottoman shamshir blade reshaped for French(?) use.
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If Russian, then from Zlatoust. Zlatoust weapon factory was founded in 1813. I have a book with the best blades from Zlatoust, see the picture I added. All blades from Zlatoust of this kind are very decorated. Ivan Bushuev is my favorite artist. On page 130 is a similar saber from Wilhelm Schaaf (1820), but it is not made of layered steel. The early blades from Zlatoust made of layered steel are not real, only a surface etching.
This is all I know.
The other book is from the German Blade Museum "damascened steel, history of a legend". Many different german blades made of damascened steel from 18-20th century. None of the blades is similar to this saber.