No troops, until the time of the Crusades, had any distinguishing mark among themselves, except the difference of their arms, and the idea of a military uniform had not then arisen. But with the emblazoned arms, the standards, and the pennants, there came into use scarves, worn as baldricks or sashes, over the cuirass, and of which the colour, which generally matched that of the standard of the feudal seignior of the wearer, became as much a rallying signal as the standards themselves (Fig. 51). The necessity of distinguishing friends from foes at a distance naturally also brought about more or less marked distinctions of dress. [Illustration: Fig. 51.--Representations of the Banner of St. Denis: No. 1, the oldest, is from a window in the Cathedral of Chartres; No. 3, the latest, is from a Manuscript of Froissart, No. 2644, in the National Library (the original which it represents was carried at the defeat of Artevelde at Rosebecque); No. 2, Drawing from the Library of the Célestins, preserved by Montfaucon.--From “Paris and its Historians,” by MM. Leroux de Lincy and L. Tisserand.] The administration and inner regulation of an army, which had been one of the principal cares of the Gothic and earlier Frankish kings, were entirely neglected, like everything pertaining to the art of war, for many centuries. For instance, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, the captains of the different companies were allowed to distribute the pay to their men as they pleased after each muster, and were solely and entirely entrusted with the administration of their companies. They were thus entirely irresponsible, and did not concern themselves to see that the regulations, prescribed by superior authority, concerning the general discipline of the army, were carried into effect. In 1355, daring the captivity of King John in England, special commissioners were appointed, with the title of controllers, whose duty it was to superintend the internal economy of the army generally, with a view to put a stop to the numerous abuses that existed; but the disturbed and unfortunate period at which this attempt was made rendered it almost necessarily a barren one. When the dauphin came to the throne as Charles V., he returned to this project, which he had indeed himself originated, but at his death anarchy again reigned for more than a century. Civil and foreign wars laid waste and exhausted France, without bringing to the surface one single creative mind, with the exception perhaps of Jean Bureau, the grand master of artillery under Charles VIII. It is by no means going beyond the mark to state that the reverses sustained in Italy, in the reigns of Charles VIII. and Louis XII., were owing less to the chivalrous recklessness of the nobility and their ignorance of the first principles of warfare, than to the gross faults of the military administration of the country. Even in Francis I.’s time, the public service was in such