THE EOYAL AETILLEEY INSTITUTION. 
403 
distances. Pour cela on introduit dans leur interieur une certaine quantile 
de balles independamment dela charge qui doitproduire Feclatement, et Fon 
place dans Fceil une fusee d’une longuer telle que le feu ne se communique 
a la charge qu'un peu avant Farrivee au but.”— Traite d 3 Artillerie, Theorique 
et Pratique, p. 253. 
Piobert does not, it is true, say in so many words that the true principles 
of shrapnel fire were understood by those who proposed and employed these 
projectiles in the 17th Century, but he implies it. He implies by the bare 
fact of introducing a description of this projectile in connexion with his 
account of shrapnel shells; and he implies it more pointedly by the very 
precise description which he gives of the action of these shells and of their 
bullets ;* this description being surely intended to convey two things to the 
mind of the reader,—the first, that the action of the projectiles was the same 
as that of the modern Shrapnel shell (and we now know that fired and exploded 
under the same conditions it must necessarily in its main effects have been 
the same),—the second, and the more important, that the inventors of the 
shell and the artillerymen who used them thoroughly well understood their 
action, and the principle upon which that action depended;—in short, 
that theoretically and practically, spherical case shot were understood more 
than a century before General Shrapnel proposed them; and that the credit 
of the invention belongs not to that officer, but to the artillerists of the time 
of Louis XIY. 
PioberFs statement has been adopted by some other authors: Thiroux 
says, “ Des Schrapnells ou ohus a hdlles: Ces projectiles, essayes en France, 
des le temps de Louis XIY, au siege de Lille.”— Instruction d 3 Artillerie, 
p. 299 ; and Captain Brenton in his Course for the American Cadets, in the 
same way, dates the first employment of these projectiles as far back as the 
time of Louis XIV : “Projectiles similar to spherical case shot were used in 
France as early as the time of Louis XIV.”— American Artillery Course, p. 77. 
Now with regard to PioberFs statement, (upon which apparently the other 
two that I have quoted are built), I would first observe that I have been 
unable to trace the authority upon which it rests. Ordinarily Piobert is 
very particular in supporting his statement by references to the authors from 
whom his authority is borrowed; in this instance he fails to do so. In the 
absence of any such references I have searched a number of other works 
upon the history of Artillery; particularly, the admirable Le Passe et 
VAvenir de Artitlerie, perhaps the most correct and authoritative work upon 
the subject which has ever been published; neither this work, nor, with one 
exception, any of the others which I have consulted, make any mention of 
such a projectile as Piobert describes. 
The one exception is Decker, who in a note says “Dans Fouvrage de 
Geissler (Curieuse und Velkommene artillerie) de 1718, on lit., page 90, 
que Geissler a tire ces bombes, le 20 Novembre 1642, a la citadelle de 
Lille, en presence de Louvois et du Grand-Maitre de Lude.”— Experiences 
sur les Shrapnels, p. 13. It is probably, then, upon Geissler 3 s authority that 
PioberFs statement is founded; but that this authority rests upon no very 
* I have not thought it necessary to quote this description; it is exactly the description which 
the modern artilleryman would give of the action and principle of the shrapnel shell. 
[VOL. III.] O O 
