The strength of a Company was at first indefinite, and amounted to some hundreds of men, but it was gradually made smaller, so as to be more flexible and mobile. The practice of the most successful leaders finally reduced it to a definite body of about a hundred men, which it was found was the largest number which could with certainty be reached by the voice, and commanded by one man, in battle. This strength of one hundred men was that of a Company of the Scottish Guards in France, and is found in England in the troops and companies of the army of Henry VIII.; it is still that of our Companies to-day. The assemblage of a number of Companies and Troops made up the _Army_ (from the French _Armée_, Italian _Armata_, or _armed host_). Its _Commander_ (Old French _Commandaire_, Late Latin _Commandator_, a word which occurs in English in the fourteenth century) was styled the King’s _Constable_ (_Comes Stabuli_, or _Master of the Horse_), a dignity as old as the early Frankish Kings. His Second-in-Command was the _Marshal_ (Old French _Mareschal_, Late Latin _Mariscalcus_, from Teutonic _mara_, _horse_, and _skalk_, _servant_). Down to our day the title of the highest military rank in France has always been _Maréchal de France_. But there was also a _Maréchal de Camp_ of lower rank, only immediately senior to a Colonel, so that the Germans made a mistake when, in the eighteenth century, they translated the latter, and not the former, title, and called their highest rank of Officer _Feld-Marschal_, which we have adopted as _Field-Marshal_. The difference between the two titles may be exemplified by Marshal Belleisle’s remark on Montcalm’s exploit at Ticonderoga: “If it were _possible_ for the King to make a Maréchal de Camp a Maréchal de France, he would do it for Montcalm.” The term _Constable_ for the Supreme Commander soon dropped out, and was replaced by _Marshal_, and later by _Captain-General_, which lasted down to Marlborough’s time. The word _Commander-in-Chief_, which does not occur in English till the middle of the seventeenth century, came into use as the official title early in the eighteenth. THE REGIMENT It had become usual by the sixteenth century to raise soldiers by larger bodies than the Company or Troop, and these were called _Regiments_, from being under the _regiment_, or _rule_, of one man. This officer was called the _Oberst_, or _uppermost man_, in Germany, but in other countries the _Colonel_. This word comes from the Italian _Colonello_ (_little column_), which perhaps meant the leading Company, or that of the Colonel. In Spanish it is _Coronel_, which seems to have given rise to our pronunciation of the word.