NOTES ON ARTILLERY. 
^ 585 
these pieces. They served as models for those which were constructed 
at Douay in 1743,, and after that howitzers regularly formed a part of 
all field artillery equipments. 
Note C. 
On the meaning of the word, “ grenade 
By this word Napoleon doubtless meant ee shrapnel/' invented by 
the General of that name, and which had been in use in England since 
18 °3. 
An English howitzer and two waggons filled with these shell having 
been taken at the battle of Albuera (16th May 1811), the Emperor 
ordered General Eble, 1 2 the ad interim President of the Committee 
(letter of the 22nd Aug. 1811), to have experiments carried out to 
determine the mode of loading these shell. Thenceforth Napoleon 
attached great importance to their property of bursting on graze and 
projecting their contents as far as possible. 
Note D. 
On the arithmetic of the penultimate paragraph. 
The Emperor calculated mentally with extreme rapidity, but often 
rounded off his numbers. Besides, he dictated very quickly, and the 
writer, in making his fair copy, had to verify the figures, which he had 
often had great difficulty in catching. 
The Emperor seems to have taken the following data :— 
6 pr.: waggon 130 rounds; gun limber 15; mule 24 
Howitzer: „ 75 ; „ 5; „ 14 
Guns had normally 6 horses, other carriages, some 6, some 4. To 
facilitate his calculations Napoleon counted 5 horses per carriage (see 
Correspondance Militaire, Vol. X., p. 319). 
That being granted, the figures of the penultimate paragraph should, 
it would appear, be read as follows 
A battery of six 6 prs. and two 5J-in. howitzers (with ordinary 
supply) would have 23 carriages (without the proloug 3 ), 115 horses, 
1544 rounds, and 16 mules. 
We must now put a waggon and a half per 6pr. (total 9 waggons) 
which would make 26 carriages, 130 horses and 1590 rounds. There 
are therefore 3 carriages, 15 horses and 102 Opr. rounds more, but 16 
mules and 56 howitzer rounds less. 
The 6 pr. with ammunition mules would have 196 rounds (1173-4-6), 
1 They tell a good story of Eble. He was a horse artillery captain at the outbreak of the 
Revolution and his men were a rough and insubordinate lot. One day he told a gunner to dis¬ 
mount. The man wouldn’t, but replied : “ La r6publique m’a f # ^t^ un eheval pour que je monte 
dessus. Eble replied : “ Elle t’a aussi %^t # un capitaine pour que tu lui obeisses.” And Eble 
pulled him off his horse.—F. E. B. L. 
2 Captain Rollin, the Commandant’s deputy in the service of the Revue d’Artillerie, informs me 
that the name “ prolouge ” in Napoleon’s time was occasionally given to the divisional ammu¬ 
nition waggon. The word does not belong to the existing nomenclature of artillery material, but 
is often used colloquially to designate certain old fashioned waggons now only used for fatigue 
duties. These waggons are like the service forage waggons except that they have closed instead of 
open sides. Neither of these meanings of “ prolouge ” is given in Littre.—E. E. B. L. 
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