f miners, consisting of
24 officers and 576 men. In 1804, Napoleon increased these troops to
nine companies, containing 36 officers and 864 men. The present French
peace establishment contains six companies of miners, organized much the
same as under Napoleon. In the French army of 1799 there were two
regiments of pontoniers, of 38 officers and 960 men. But this number was
found too small in the remaining campaigns, and the deficiency was
temporarily supplied by organizing sailors for these duties. In the
present French army organization, there are eleven companies of
pontoniers, forming a regiment of sixty-three officers.

_We have in our service no sappers, miners, or pontoniers_, and, in case
of war, would be found without the means of executing any military
works, or performing any military operation which would require engineer
troops.

In the preliminary stages of army organization under Louis XIV.,
infantry troops were detailed as sappers, and instructed in these duties
by the engineers. This irregularity of service soon caused difficulties
and losses, and the evils springing from it were so great, that Vauban
urged the propriety of a separate organization. In 1670 he officially
recommended to the king to establish a regiment of twelve hundred
sappers and _ouvriers_, and in a subsequent report on the value of these
troops, used the following language: "They would be useful in peace as
well as in war, and would be the means of saving much in all
fortifications where they should be employed. In fact, I have not the
least doubt that they would save annually to the king much more than
their pay. I assert all I have said on this subject with as much
confidence as if I had seen the result; and I can, with the same
certainty, add, that this small troop will be the means of saving large
numbers of good engineers and brave officers and soldiers, from the
stern necessity to which we are reduced of exposing, almost always, the
laborers and those who support them; which necessity would not arise
had we at command a sufficient number of this kind of workmen well
instructed. To such a degree have I felt the necessity of sappers, at
every siege at which I have been present, that I have always had reason
to repent of not having more urgently solicited the creation of this
company."

Such are the views of the greatest of military engineers, a man who
fought one hundred and forty battles, conducted fifty-eight sieges, and
buil