This etching resembles an engraving because the artist has used an échoppe, a tool with an oval profiled end, to draw tapered lines through the etching ground in imitation of the marks usually made by an engraver’s burin into the plate. Developed in the early 17th century, the échoppe was used by engravers like Abraham Bosse (ca. 1602 to 4–1676) and Jacques Callot (1592–1635) at a time when etching was considered inferior to engraving. Although the etching process involved drawing freely through etching ground using a needle, and could therefore produce freely meandering lines, etchers would still use the syntax of hatching or parallel lines employed by engravers for shading and modelling; see for example the soldiers’ helmets and faces. The lightly rendered background to this image, reveals the possibilities of etching as a drawn process.