As early as the middle of the seventeenth century, some corps of light cavalry called Carabins were armed with the short rifle-musket, and hence the derivation of the term carabines applied to the weapon.  These “carabines” were also very promptly adopted by hunters and sportsmen everywhere.  The Swiss and the Tyrolese employed them in chasing the chamois among their mountains, and practised their skill in the use of them at general shooting-matches, which to this very day are celebrated as national festivals.  The Austrian Government was the first to profit by this preference on the part of certain populations for accurate fire-arms, and at once proceeded to organize battalions of Tyrolese Chasseurs, or Huntsmen,—­to give the meaning of the French word.  These Chasseurs were applied in the Austrian service as light troops, and so great was their efficiency against the Prussians that Frederick the Great was compelled, in his turn, to organize a battalion of Chasseur sharp-shooters.  France followed suit, in the course of the eighteenth century, and called into existence various corps of the same description, under different names.  These, however, were but short-lived, although some of them, for instance, the Grassin Legion, acquired quite a reputation.

Finally came the French Revolution.  The troops of the Republic were more remarkable for courage and enthusiasm than for tactics and drill.  They usually attacked as skirmishers,—­a system which may be employed successfully by even the most regularly disciplined armies, but which is sometimes more especially useful to raw troops, because it gives the private soldier an opportunity to compensate by personal intelligence for the lack of thorough instruction.  Struck by the aptitude of the French recruits for that kind of fighting, the Convention, in reorganizing the army, decreed the formation of some half-brigades of light infantry.  The picked men were to be armed with the new weapon, and received the name of Carabiniers.  The carabine of 1793 is the first specimen of that kind of arm which was regularly employed in France.

Subsequently, owing to many practical defects, when Napoleon reorganized the equipment of the French armies, the carabine was dropped from the service, although the regiments of light infantry were retained, and their picked companies preserved the title of Carabiniers.  In the Imperial Guard, too, there were companies of Skirmishers, Flankers, and Chasseurs, but neither one of these corps was distinguished by any particular style of arms or drill.  The Emperor’s wish was to have the armament and training of all his infantry uniform, so that all the regiments should be equally adapted to the service of troops of the line or light troops.  Finally, to carry out his design with greater ease, he formed all the men who were more active and agile than the rest, or whose low stature prevented them from becoming Grenadiers, into companies of Voltigeurs,—­and this was one of his finest military creations.