THE 110YAL AKTILLEKY INSTITUTION. 
467 
that horse artillery was a branch rather of the cavalry than of the field 
artillery service. 1 2 
When Gribeauval returned to Paris from Germany in 1763, where he had 
studied all the details of the Prussian and Austrian artilleries, 3 he found the 
Prench artillery in a deplorable condition. 3 The French could only reap as 
they had sowed, and they were now reaping the bitter fruit of de Yalliere's 
system. De Yalliere jt oere died in 1747, and was immediately succeeded by 
de Yalli&re fils, who inherited all his father's failings in an aggravated form 
and maintained all the vices of his father's system with a blind obstinacy 
which has happily been rarely equalled in military history:— 
“ Aetas parentum, pejor avis, tulit 
Nos nequiores, mox daturos 
Progeniem vitiosiorem.” 4 
But his hour was fast approaching. The house was built upon the sands, 
and when the storms of war descended upon it it fell, and great was its fall. 
“ La situation dans laquelle se trouve l'artillerie est effrayante; il est certain 
qu'il faut avoir du courage ef de la fermete pour oser en faire l'exposition." 
Such are the words in which. M. Dubois described the state of the French 
artillery in an official report drawn up by order of the War Minister in 1763 5 
Such a terrible pass, indeed, had affairs come to, that in spite of his 
unblushing effrontery and court influence, de Yalliere fils was suspended in 
1765, and Gribeauval was ordered to re-organise the artillery. To this 
formidable undertaking Gribeauval brought a powerful mind, a rare talent 
for organisation, and a large experience in the field. He drew out a compre¬ 
hensive and able plan of reform without delay, and was about to carry it into 
execution when the intrigues of de Yalliere and his disciples prevailed against 
him, and his star set:— 
“ Still her old empire to restore she tries, 
Eor, horn a goddess, Dulness never dies.” 6 
His star set, but only to rise again in redoubled brightness after the lapse 
of a few years. For civilisation, with the attendant arts and sciences, was 
1 “ Oesterreich und Schweden verletzten ihn,” cries the author of the “ Ueber reitende Art. &c.” 
p. 4, “und wiirdigten das Gotterkind zum Kruppel herab; sie raubten der Vaffe ihre schonsie 
Eigenthiimlichkeit, und unter ihren Handen wurde sie ein gebrechliches Zwitterwerkzeug ohne 
Einklang, Kraft, und Geist.” 
2 He commanded the Austrian artillery (or portions of it) on many occasions during the Seven 
Years’ War, and he further visited Berlin for the purpose of making himself acquainted with the 
details of the Prussian artillery. Fave’s “Hist, et Tact, des Trois Armes,” p. 145. Von Troschke, 
p. 15. 
3 Speaking of the disasters of the French arms in the middle of the 18th century, the Emperor 
Napoleon III. says:—“L’Expose de 1’etat desastreux ou se trouvait notre materiel d’artillerie sert 
a la fois a faire comprendre l’inferiorite hontense des armees frangaises a cette epoque et l’import- 
anee des changements qui ont suivi.”—“Etudes, &c.” Tom IV. p. 103. 
4 Horace. 
3 “Etudes, &c.” Tom. IV. p. 103. 
6 Pope’s “Dunciad.” 
“The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution, is one of those pleasant falsehoods 
which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience 
refutes. History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not suppressed for 
ever, it may be thrown back for centuries.”—Mr. J. S, Mill’s “Essay on Liberty,” p. 16. 
