rs were applied in the Austrian service as
light troops, and so great was their efficiency against the Prussians
that Frederick the Great was compelled, in his turn, to organize a
battalion of Chasseur sharp-shooters. France followed suit, in the
course of the eighteenth century, and called into existence various
corps of the same description, under different names. These, however,
were but short-lived, although some of them, for instance, the Grassin
Legion, acquired quite a reputation.

Finally came the French Revolution. The troops of the Republic were
more remarkable for courage and enthusiasm than for tactics and drill.
They usually attacked as skirmishers,--a system which may be employed
successfully by even the most regularly disciplined armies, but which
is sometimes more especially useful to raw troops, because it
gives the private soldier an opportunity to compensate by personal
intelligence for the lack of thorough instruction. Struck by the
aptitude of the French recruits for that kind of fighting, the
Convention, in reorganizing the army, decreed the formation of some
half-brigades of light infantry. The picked men were to be armed with
the new weapon, and received the name of _Carabiniers_. The carabine
of 1793 is the first specimen of that kind of arm which was regularly
employed in France.

Subsequently, owing to many practical defects, when Napoleon
reorganized the equipment of the French armies, the carabine was
dropped from the service, although the regiments of light infantry
were retained, and their picked companies preserved the title of
Carabiniers. In the Imperial Guard, too, there were companies of
Skirmishers, Flankers, and Chasseurs, but neither one of these corps
was distinguished by any particular style of arms or drill. The
Emperor's wish was to have the armament and training of all his
infantry uniform, so that all the regiments should be equally adapted
to the service of troops of the line or light troops. Finally, to
carry out his design with greater ease, he formed all the men who were
more active and agile than the rest, or whose low stature prevented
them from becoming Grenadiers, into companies of Voltigeurs,--and this
was one of his finest military creations.

However, notwithstanding the correctness of Napoleon's views, as a
general principle, the thousand and one uses of a corps of picked
marksmen as light troops were so universally admitted that the
different nations of Europ