The Regiment was 100 strong, and was divided into eight Companies, so that the Battalion had four Companies. Hence we find that Battalions in foreign armies have always had four Companies, putting on one side the Grenadier and Light Infantry Companies, which were added later, as described on page 190. The British Regiment, which was not divided into Battalions, kept the eight-Company organization of Gustavus, and, when eventually a second Battalion was added, it kept the same number of Companies. The Regimental Officers were those of the Landsknechts--the _Colonel_, the _Lieutenant-Colonel_, and the _Sergeant-Major_ or Staff Officer, called later the _Major_. Four Surgeons were added to the Regimental Staff, which was a new departure, as up to this time medical arrangements had been the concern of the Captains only. The Company comprised 72 muskets and 54 pikes, and was divided into six Sections, each under a Corporal, four being of musketeers and two of pikemen. The two Sections of musketeers on each flank formed a new fighting unit, the _Platoon_ (French _peloton_, a _little bundle_), which could act independently of the rest of the Company under the Lieutenant or Ensign, while the Captain commanded the two centre Sections of pikes. When pikes were eventually given up, the centre Sections disappeared, and the two Platoons on the flanks then constituted the whole Company. A Platoon thus became a Half-Company, as the _Peloton_ still is in France. _Platoon fire_ (Half-Company volleys) was in use in the British Army till the nineteenth century. There were thus eight Platoons in the Battalion. We shall find that they still formed the fighting units in the Infantry of Frederick the Great, the Companies being then only the administrative units, although they subsequently superseded the Platoons as the fighting units of the Battalion. The Company Officers were, as in the Landsknechts, the _Captain_, the _Lieutenant_, the _Ensign_, and the _Sergeant_. The latter had an assistant, the _Second Sergeant_, and there were 4 _Under-Sergeants_, besides the 6 _Corporals_ of Sections. Three Fifes were added to the three Drums in each Company, in which we see the origin of the Drum and Fife Band. FRENCH INFANTRY During the wars of Louis XIV., in the latter part of the seventeenth century, the development of Infantry was advanced by the reduction of the number of pikes to one-third of the Battalion, and then to a quarter and a fifth, till at last they were only found in a central group in each Company, so small as to be called a _Picquet_, or “_little body of pikes_,” whence the word _Picket_, meaning the Support of the Outposts, probably because the musketeers furnished the sentries and the pikes the Support.