Note 348 — Chapter IV

Pistols are said to have been invented early in the sixteenth century. Grose's Military Antiq. vol. i. pp. 102, 146. Gunpowder was first employed in mining towns in 1487. Prescott's Hist. of Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. ii. p. 32; Koch, Tableaux des Révolutions, vol. i. p. 243; Daniel, Histoire de la Milice Française, vol. i. p. 574. Daniel (Milice Française, vol. i. pp. 580, 581) says that bombs were not invented till 1588; and the same thing is asserted in Biographie Universelle, vol. xv. p. 248: but, according to Grose (Military Antiq. vol. i. p. 387), they are mentioned by Valturinus in 1472. On the general condition of the French artillery in the sixteenth century, see Relations des Ambassadeurs Vénitiens, vol. i. pp. 94, 476, 478, Paris, 1838, 4to: a curious and valuable publication. There is some doubt as to the exact period in which cannons were first known; but they were certainly used in war before the middle of the fourteenth century. See Bohlen, das alte Indien, vol. ii. p. 63; Daniel, Histoire de la Milice, vol. i. pp. 441, 442.