We cannot follow this army through the triumphs and the disasters of the next half century, but we must needs glance briefly at the rapid progress of French military organisation. Louis the Twelfth took the improvement of his foot-soldiers seriously in hand and increased the number of the companies, or bands as they were called, that had been begun by the bands of Picardy. The number of these bands, permanent and temporary, demanded the appointment of an officer who should be intermediary between the general and the captains of independent companies. About the year 1524 such an officer was established with the new title of colonel,[64] and the companies placed under his command were said, in French, to be under his regiment. The word soon grew to be used in a collective sense, and such and such companies under Colonel A.'s regiment became known simply as Colonel A.'s regiment. The colonel had a company of his own, but having no leisure to attend to it made it over to a captain, who was called the colonel's lieutenant or lieutenant-colonel. Another company was commanded by the sergeant-major, the word sergeant, which we met with first at the very beginning, having come into use in France with a new meaning in the year 1485. As already mentioned in speaking of the landsknechts, the name of sergeant became for some reason bound up with the functions of drill, and the sergeant-major was to the regiment what the sergeant was to the company. He was therefore the only officer who remained on his horse in action, his duties compelling him continually to gallop from company to company for the correction of bad formation, and for the ordering of ranks and files. It will be seen that the sergeant-major, or as we now call him major, originally did the work which is now performed in England by the adjutant.