"The kings of France loved their army. Henry IV
[...] secured his kingdom and established his reputation in the field.
Louis XVI loved nothing about court life as much as reviewing the household
troops, and he gloried in sharing the hardships of his men." (Sonnino
111). "When taking the field in the mid-seventeenth century French
armies usually formed into two lines, with the infantry in the middle of each
line and the cavalry on the flanks. The infantry lined up six ranks deep
with gaps between each battalion; those of the second line covered the spaces
left by the first line, and behind both remained a reserve force of cavalry and
infantry. Depending on the terrain, the artillery, usually about one
piece per thousand men, would be placed in the gaps left by the infantry.
If the army was large enough, each line was divided into a right and left
wing, each commanded by a lieutenant-general, while the marshal places himself
in the most advantageous location to observe the field of battle and send
instructions to his subordinates. The commander sought as his primary
tactical goal to break the enemy line at some point, usually with a cavalry
charge, and then penetrate the break with as large a force as possible in order
to achieve a decisive victory." (Sonnino 114). In between times of
war "[...] Louis found a number of other tasks to occupy the time and
energy of his soldiers. [...] The King and Louvois sent various cavalry and
dragoon regiments to dwell with non-Catholics in heavily Protestant regions of
France as an encouragement to these Huguenots to return to the "true"
faith. [...] Finally, between 1685 and 1688 Louis and Louvois put some
twenty thousand soldiers to work in vain attempt to build an aqueduct from the
Eure River to the chateau of Versailles, malarial fevers in the unhealthy located
construction camps causing the deaths of thousands of soldiers who would soon
be needed." (Sonnino 120). "[...] The minister of war
[Louvois] persuaded the king in 1682 to create two training companies for
cadets at Metz and Tournai."(Sonnino 121). "[Louvois] was very
interested in technological improvements that could make the army more
effective and expressed great pride in the copper-covered pontoons for the boat
bridge used to cross the Rhine in the first campaign of the Dutch War. He
encouraged experiments with various ways of producing canon and gunpowder and
urged Vauban to make a prototype of the first practical bayonet in 1687.
[...] Louvois strongly resisted the trend to replace matchlock muskets
with the lighter and more reliable flintlock type. [...] It was only after his
death that Louis XIV, hearing the Duke de Luxembourg's son tell how French
soldiers at the battle of Steinkerque had thrown down their matchlocks and
picked up enemy flintlocks, ordered a report on the advisability of totally
replacing the obsolete matchlocks, the last of which disappeared from service
in 1703 along with the pike."(Sonnino 122). "Following Louvois'
death, in 1691, the king stopped accepting new cadets, dissolved the cadet
companies entirely in 1694, and returned to the old system of officer
training."(Sonnino 121). "The twenty years of warfare that
followed Louvois' death were both beneficial and detrimental to the French
army. They were beneficial in that the king concentrated on
strategy considerations and higher officer selections, intervening in lesser
administrative matters rarely and then for the purpose of maintaining
established policies. His last three war secretaries introduced few
innovations and satisfied themselves by retaining both the personnel and the
practices of the earlier years. The earlier reforms thus had the
opportunity to become institutionalized." (Sonnino 124)
