Their armament was
likewise superior, as they had adopted the musket, which was the
first fire-arm that a man could handle with any facility, load with
rapidity, and aim with any precision. Each of their _tercios_ or
battalions contained a regulated proportion of these musketeers, and
the number was large, compared to the whole mass of troops.
The excellent results attained by the Spaniards, in the more perfect
organization and equipment of their infantry, did not escape the
attention of the French officers; and one of them especially, the Duke
Francis de Guise, endeavored to turn his observations to good account.
It is to him that we are indebted for the first rough sketch of
regimental organization modelled upon that of the _tercios_, and, in
more than one encounter with the Huguenots, the numbers of thoroughly
skilled arquebuse-men embodied in the old French bands in Picardy and
Piedmont secured advantages to the Catholic armies. In the opposite
party, a young general who was destined to become a great king,
endowed with that creative instinct, that genius which is as readily
applicable to the science of government as to that of war, and which,
when tempered with good sense, may bestow glory and happiness upon
whole nations, Henry IV.
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