By this truly monarchical system, to which we venture to call the attention of the sovereigns who wish to retain their crowns, the whole army corps, and all the members of the military class, were successively admitted to the honor of guarding the sacred person of the king, which must have singularly augmented their devotedness and fidelity. This system had the great advantage of dissipating all feelings of envy with which privileged corps are regarded. The Egyptian monarch doubtless found a solid support in this intimate union with the military class from which it sprang. King Psammetichus, the founder of the Saïte dynasty, was guilty of the capital fault of employing foreign troops, and violating the civil rights of the native soldiers. He thus caused the emigration of the entire national forces which we have already signalized as one of the principal causes of the downfall of Egypt. From the time of the Persian conquest, the glorious _rôle_ of the great Egyptian army was ended. History only mentions after this the exploits of the navy. Herodotus relates that Egypt furnished two hundred vessels for the fleet assembled by Xerxes for the subjugation of Greece. “The Egyptians,” says he, “had barred helmets, convex bucklers with a wide bordure, spears for naval combats, and great battle-axes. Most of them wore cuirasses and long swords. Such was their equipment.” This fleet valiantly sustained the national honor, for the same historian adds a little further on: “In this combat (that of Artemisium, which preceded the great naval battle of Salamis) the Egyptians made themselves conspicuous among the troops of Xerxes; they did great things, and took five Greek vessels with their equipages.” IV. LEGISLATION--ADMINISTRATIVE AND JUDICIAL INSTITUTIONS. The wisdom of the Egyptian laws was everywhere admired in ancient times. “I would remind the reader, accustomed, perhaps, to regard the early history of Egypt as fabulous or somewhat uncertain, that obscurity rests on some points of its chronology, and the name and succession of some of the kings, but not on its legislation, the wisdom of which was admired by antiquity; and its effect on the power and genius of the Egyptian nation is attested by the monuments still in existence.[22] Holy Scripture itself seems to ratify this eulogium in saying that “Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in his words and in his deeds.”[23]