instituted in imitation of the Levites, who fought like the rest of the Jewish tribes.

Neither armies nor arms were the same in antiquity as at present. The Egyptians hardly ever had cavalry. It would have been of little use in a country intersected by canals, inundated during five months of the year, and miry during five more. The inhabitants of a great part of Asia used chariots of war.

They are mentioned in the annals of China. Confucius says that in his time each governor of a province furnished to the emperor a thousand war chariots, each drawn by four horses. The Greeks and Trojans fought in chariots drawn by two horses.

Cavalry and chariots were unknown to the Jews in a mountainous tract, where their first king, when he was elected, had nothing but she-asses. Thirty sons of Jair, princes of thirty cities, according to the text (Judges, x, 4), rode each upon an ass. Saul, afterwards king of Judah, had only she-asses; and the sons of David all fled upon mules when Absalom had slain his brother Amnon. Absalom was mounted on a mule in the battle which he fought against his father's troops; which proves, according to the Jewish historians, either that mares were beginning to be used in Palestine, or that they were already rich enough there to buy mules from the neighboring country.

The Greeks made but little use of cavalry. It was chiefly with the Macedonian phalanx that Alexander gained the battles which laid Persia at his feet. It was the Roman infantry that subjugated the greater part of the world. At the battle of Pharsalia, Cæsar had but one thousand horsemen.

It is not known at what time the Indians and the Africans first began to march elephants at the head of their armies. We cannot read without surprise of Hannibal's elephants crossing the Alps, which were much harder to pass then than they are now.

There have long been disputes about the disposition of the Greek and Roman armies, their arms, and their evolutions. Each one has given his plan of the battles of Zama and Pharsalia.

The commentator Calmet, a Benedictine, has printed three great volumes of his "Dictionary of the Bible," in which, the better to explain God's commandments, are inserted a hundred engravings, where you see plans of battles and sieges in copper-plate. The God of the Jews was the God of armies, but Calmet was not His secretary; he cannot have known, but by revelation, how the armies of the Amalekites, the Moabites, the Syrians, and the Philistines were arranged on the days of general murder. These plates of carnage, designed at a venture, made his hook five or six louis dearer, but made it no better.

It is a great question whether the Franks, whom the Jesuit Daniel calls French by anticipation, used bows and arrows in their armies, and whether they had helmets and cuirasses.

Supposing that they went to combat almost naked, and armed, as they are said to have been, with only a small carpenter's ax, a sword, and a knife, we must infer that the Romans, masters of Gaul, so easily conquered by Clovis, had lost all their ancient valor, and that the Gauls were as willing to be subject to a small number of Franks as to a small number of Romans. Warlike accoutrements have since changed, as everything else changes.

In the days of knights, squires, and varlets, the armed forces of Germany, France, Italy, England, and Spain consisted almost entirely of horsemen, who, as well as their horses, were covered with steel. The infantry performed the functions rather of pioneers than of soldiers. But the English always had good archers among their foot, which contributed, in a great measure, to their gaining almost every battle.

Who would believe that armies nowadays do but make experiments in natural philosophy? A soldier would be much astonished if some learned man were to say to him:

"My friend, you are a better machinist than Archimedes. Five parts of saltpetre, one of sulphur, and one of carbo ligneus have been separately prepared. Your saltpetre dissolved, well filtered, well evaporated, well crystallized, well turned, well dried, has been incorporated with the yellow purified sulphur. These two ingredients, mixed with powdered charcoal, have, by means of a little vinegar, or solution of sal-ammoniac, or urine, formed large balls, which balls have been reduced in pulverem pyrium by a mill. The effect of this mixture is a dilatation, which is nearly as four thousand to unity; and the lead in your barrel exhibits another effect, which is the product of its bulk multiplied by its velocity.

"The first who discovered a part of this mathematical secret was a Benedictine named Roger Bacon. The invention was perfected, in Germany, in the fourteenth century, by another Benedictine named Schwartz. So that you owe to two monks the art of being an excellent murderer, when you aim well, and your powder is good.

"Du Cange has in vain pretended that, in 1338, the registers of the Chambre des Comptes, at Paris, mention a bill paid for gunpowder. Do not believe it. It was artillery which is there spoken of—a name attached to ancient as well as to modern warlike machines.

"Gunpowder entirely superseded the Greek fire, of which the Moors still made use. In fine, you are the depositary of an art, which not only imitates the thunder, but is also much more terrible."

There is, however, nothing but truth in this speech. Two monks have, in reality, changed the face of the earth.

Before cannon were known, the northern nations had subjugated nearly the whole hemisphere, and could come again, like famishing wolves, to seize upon the lands as their ancestors had done.