, had taken particular pains to increase the
number and the efficiency of his arquebuse-men, and frequently managed
to employ them in ways as novel as they were successful. At the Battle
of Coutras, he distributed them in groups of twenty-five, in the midst
of his squadrons of cavalry, so that, when the royal _gendarmerie_
advanced to charge the latter, they were suddenly received with
murderous volleys by these arquebuse-men _of the spur_, as they were
called, owing to their combination with the cavalry, and the shock
they thus encountered gave victory to the Protestants. Henry IV. went
even too far with his passion for fire-arms. He increased their number
and their use among cavalry so extravagantly, that the latter arm was
perverted from its proper object. The cavalry, for a long time, forgot
that their strength lay in the points of their sabres, in the dash of
the men, and the speed of their horses.
Most of the great captains of an early day thus signalized their
progress by some improvement in the equipment of their infantry. One
of the most formidable enemies of Spanish power, Maurice of Nassau,
a skilful engineer and tactician, was the first to array infantry in
such a manner as to combine the simultaneous use of the musket and the
pike.
Pages:
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316