organization of French military forces...was still considered a noble pursuit par excellence. The core of Charles’s army that marched into Italy, the compagnies d’ordonnance, known collectively as the gendarmerie, consisted of noble volunteers. The infantry, however, was made up of non-nobles, and by the middle of the 16th century there were more than 30,000 infantrymen to a mere 5,000 noble...
police services...carry out criminal investigations and hunt down suspects; and the complex internal intelligence and antiespionage units. The municipal forces are responsible to the mayor. There is also the national gendarmerie, a kind of state police, which is responsible to the minister of defense, combats terrorism, and is of particular importance in the rural areas.
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