of heart and fought on foot. As they were resolved never to turn their backs upon the enemy, they wore no defensive armor except in front, by which means they were less encumbered in fight.” The astonishing success of the French in the Italian wars (1494) was largely imputable to the free use and admirable organization of their infantry, whose strength lay in the Swiss soldiers they had. Machiavelli ascribes the misfortunes of his nation chiefly to its exclusive reliance on cavalry; this service, during the whole of the Middle Ages, being considered among the European nations so important that the horse was styled by way of eminence “the battle.” The arms and discipline of the Swiss were necessarily different from those of other European nations. The hill-sides and the mountain-tops and the deep valleys of Switzerland have felt as frequently as any part of Europe the mailed footstep of the warrior, and run as red with his blood. Zschokke, in his history, remarks that, in its wars of the last five hundred years, but particularly those growing out of the great French revolution, “battle-field touched battle-field.” During the long struggle for their liberties, they found that their poverty, with at that time a barren and ill-cultivated country, put it out of their power to bring into the field any body of horse capable of facing the enemy. Necessity compelled them to place all their confidence in infantry. With breastplates and helmets as defensive armor, together with long spears, halberds, and heavy swords as weapons of offence, they formed into large battalions, ranged in deep and close array, presenting on every side a formidable front to the enemy. They repulsed the Austrians, they broke the Burgundian Gendarmerie, and, when called to Italy, bore down with irresistible force every enemy that attempted to oppose them. Bacon, in his “History of King Henry VII.,” says: “To make good infantry, it required men bred not in a servile fashion but in some free manner. Therefore, if a state run most to noblemen and gentlemen, and that the husbandmen and ploughmen be but as their workfolks or laborers, you may have a good cavalry, but never good, stable bands of foot, in so much as they are enforced to employ bands of Swiss for their battalions of foot.” It was a trusty sword these brave and hardy peasants offered. Some thought that nature certainly only meant the Swiss for two classes, soldiers and shepherds. It is easy to convert husbandmen into good soldiers. According to the institutions of the Lacedæmonians, the employments of husbandmen and soldiers were united, as alike the highest training-schools for the qualities that make the best citizen and the best soldier. The plough was readily exchanged for the sword by those engaged in peaceful occupations that seemed to place them at an immeasurable distance from the profession of a soldier. Happy had it been for Switzerland had she gained nothing