It was with Gribeauval’s improved system that “Citizen Bonaparte, young artillery officer,” took Toulon; with which the same young “bronze artillery officer” let go his great guns in the Cul-de-Sac Dauphin against the church of St. Roch; on the Port Royal; at the Theatre de la Republique; “and the thing we specifically call French Revolution is blown into space by it, and became a thing that was.” It was with this system that this same young officer won his first brilliant victories in Italy. When the fruit of these victories had been lost during his absence he reappeared with his favorite artillery, and on the threshold of the century, in May 1800, as “First Consul of the Republic” re-achieved at Marengo the supremacy of France over Austria. As to _small arms_, as before suggested, they doubtless had their origin in the practice of the Chinese in throwing fire balls from bamboo barrels by the explosion of light charges of powder, as illustrated to this day in what are known as “Roman Candles.” Fire-crackers and grenades were also known to the Chinese and the Greeks. Among ancient fire-arms the principal ones were the arquebus, also bombardelle, and the blunderbuss. They were invented in the fourteenth century but were not much used until the fifteenth century. These guns for the most part were so heavy that they had to be rested on some object to be fired. The soldiers carried a sort of tripod for this purpose. The gun was fired by a slow-burning cord, a live coal, a lit stick, or a long rod heated at one end, and called a match. The blunderbuss was invented in Holland. It was a large, short, funnel-shaped muzzle-loader, and loaded with nails, slugs, etc. The injuries and hardships suffered by the men who used it, rather than by the enemy, rendered its name significant. Among the earliest fire-arms of this period one was invented which was a breech-loader and revolver. The breech had four chambers and was rotated by hand on an arbour parallel to the barrel. The extent of its use is not learned. To ignite the powder the “wheel-lock” and “snap-haunce” were invented by the Germans in the sixteenth century. The wheel lock consisted of a furrowed wheel and was turned by the trigger and chain against a fixed piece of iron on the stock to excite sparks which fell on to the priming. The snap-haunce, a straight piece of furrowed steel, superseded the wheel-lock. The sixteenth century had got well started before the English could be induced to give up the cross-bow and arrow, and adopt the musket. After they had introduced the musket with the snap-haunce and wooden ramrod, it became known, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, as the “Brown Bess.”