pigmies into competition. Had there been men of
different colors in the armies of the emperor, he would have composed
companies of blacks and companies of whites: in a country where there
were cyclops or hunchbacks, a good use might be made of companies of
cyclops, and others of hunchbacks."

"In 1789, the French army as composed of regiments of the line and
battalions of chasseurs; the chasseurs of the Cevennes, the Vivarais,
the Alps, of Corsica, and the Pyrenees, who at the Revolution formed
half brigades of light infantry; but the object was not to have two
different sorts of infantry, for they were raised alike, instructed
alike, drilled alike; only the battalions of chasseurs were recruited by
the men of the mountainous districts, or by the sons of the
garde-chasse; whence they were more fit to be employed on the frontiers
of the Alps and Pyrenees; and when they were in the armies of the North,
they were always detached, in preference, for climbing heights or
scouring a forest; when these men were placed in line, in a battle, they
served very well as a battalion of the line, because they had received
the same instructions, and were armed and disciplined in the same
manner. Every power occasionally raises, in war-time, irregular corps,
under the title of free or legionary battalions, consisting of foreign
deserters, or formed of individuals of a particular party or faction;
but that does not constitute two sorts of infantry. There is and can be
but one. If the apes of antiquity must needs imitate the Romans, it is
not light-armed troops that they ought to introduce, but heavy-armed
soldiers, or battalions armed with swords; for all the infantry of
Europe serve at times as light troops."

Most European nations, for reasons probably similar to those of
Napoleon, keep up this nominal division of _infantry of the line_ and
_light infantry_; but both are usually armed and equipped alike, and
both receive the same organization and instruction. The light infantry
are usually made up from the class of men, or district of country, which
furnishes the greatest number of riflemen and sharpshooters. In France,
the light infantry is best supplied by the hunters of the Ardennes, the
Vosges, and the Jura districts; in Austria, by the Croates and Tyrolese;
in Prussia, by the "foersters," or woodsmen; and in Russia, by the
Cossacks. Our own western hunters, with proper discipline, make the best
tirailleurs in the world.

Light