When originally some of the infantry were armed with the long and heavy arquebus in its primitive state, the feebleness of their fire caused Montaigne to say, certainly on military authority, "The arms have so little effect, except on the ears, that their use will be discontinued." Research is necessary to find any mention of their use in the battles of that period. [47] However we find a valuable piece of information in Brantome, writing of the battle of Pavia. "The Marquis de Pescani won the battle of Pavia with Spanish arquebusiers, in an irregular defiance of all regulation and tradition by employing a new formation. Fifteen hundred arquebusiers, the ablest, the most experienced, the cleverest, above all the most agile and devoted, were selected by the Marquis de Pescani, instructed by him on new lines, and practiced for a long time. They scattered by squads over the battlefield, turning, leaping from one place to another with great speed, and thus escaped the cavalry charge. By this new method of fighting, unusual, astonishing, cruel and unworthy, these arquebusiers greatly hampered the operations of the French cavalry, who were completely lost. For they, joined together and in mass, were brought to earth by these few brave and able arquebusiers. This irregular and new method of fighting is more easily imagined than described. Any one who can try it out will find it is good and useful; but it is necessary that the arquebusiers be good troops, very much on the jump (as the saying is) and above all reliable." It should be borne in mind, in noting the preceding, that there is always a great difference between what actually occurred, and the description thereof (made often by men who were not there, and God knows on what authority). Nevertheless, there appears in these lines of Brantome a first example of the most destructive use of the rifle, in the hands of skirmishers. During the religious wars, which consisted of skirmishes and taking and retaking garrisoned posts, the fire of arquebusiers was executed without order and individually, as above. The soldier carried the powder charges in little metal boxes hung from a bandoleer. A finer, priming, powder was contained in a powder horn; the balls were carried in a pouch. At the onset the soldier had to load his piece. It was thus that he had to fight with the match arquebus. This was still far from fire at command. However this presently appeared. Gustavus Adolphus was the first who tried to introduce method and cooerdination into infantry fire. Others, eager for innovations, followed in his path. There appeared successively, fire by rank, in two ranks, by subdivision, section, platoon, company, battalion, file fire, parapet fire, a formal fire at will, and so many others that we can be sure that all combinations were tried at this time. Fire by ranks was undoubtedly the first of these; it will give us a line on the others.