The state of France was, indeed, enough to appal the most indifferent. In the powerful language of the chronicler of the French Revolution, France, roused by many causes, [Sidenote: Carlyle.] faced the world “in that terrible strength of Nature which no man has measured;” and “whatever was cruel in the panic-frenzy of twenty-five million men--whatsoever was great in the simultaneous death-defiance of twenty-five million men--stood there in abrupt contrast, near by one another.” France was now “seeking its wild way through the New, Chaotic--where Force is not yet distinguished into Bidden and Forbidden--but Crime and Virtue welter unseparated, in that domain of what is called the Passions.” ... “The Gospel of Man’s Rights was preached abroad with the fearfullest Devil’s Message of man’s weaknesses and sins;” and a whole nation was drunk with revenge, and terror, and blood. Penetrating with different effect into every class of men in England, the tale of the French Revolution penetrated even the recesses of the Ordnance. Raising their eyes from ledgers, and gazing across the Channel, even the members of the Honourable Board were moved; and on the first day of the New Year they resolved on a step, which should bring Field Artillery more into accord with the era in the history of war which was now to commence. Nor was it an hour too soon; for in three weeks’ time, on the 21st January, [Sidenote: Carlyle.] 1793, “there was in the streets of Paris a silence as of the grave--eighty thousand armed men stood ranked, like armed statues of men; cannons bristled, cannoneers with match burning, but no word or movement; it was as a city enchanted into silence and stone: one carriage, with its escort, slowly rumbling towards the Place de la Révolution, the only sound.” The last of the dragon’s teeth was about to be sown, and a crime to be committed which should bind the governments of Europe together against France, as one man: to whom France should answer, [Sidenote: Danton.] “The coalesced Kings threaten us: we hurl at their feet, as the gage of battle, the Head of a King.” Of a truth, the Honourable Board had not moved a day too soon. Let us trace in our next chapter the development of that portion of the Corps which dates its origin from that terrible month of January 1793. CHAPTER II. THE NECESSITY, BIRTH, AND PROGRESS OF THE ROYAL HORSE ARTILLERY. Of all the so-called Battalion Records, which were kept at the various Head-quarter offices at Woolwich up to the year 1859, and the details of which are, at the best, of the most scanty description, perhaps the most meagre and most disappointing are those of the Royal Horse Artillery.