Annals of a Fortress

by Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc

An egress had been left in the strong barricade which connected the angle of the chapel choir with the adjacent tower.

Anseric and a party of his best men issued by this outlet and fell upon the flank of the attack, which fell back in disorder.

Then other egresses well masked were opened on the front of the retrenchment, and the defenders resumed the offensive. They very nearly regained possession of these breaches and of the gateway; but the duke, on seeing his force in disorder, brought up his reserves, and the three bodies of assailants, four times more numerous than the defenders, obliged the latter to retire again behind their retrenchments. Then about seven o'clock in the evening—for the combat was prolonged without decisive success on either side, and the days are long at this period of the year—the two catapults discharged a quantity of darts furnished with burning tow on the roof of the stabling and of the chapel. The men of the castle exclusively occupied with the defence of the retrenchment, had no time to think of extinguishing the fire, more especially as the crossbowmen stationed on the defences of the bailey, now in the hands of the Burgundians, struck every defender showing himself on these buildings. The fire, therefore, soon gained the roofs. During the attack on the retrenchment, the duke resolved to get rid of the defenders remaining in his rear in the tower Y, and who annoyed the assailants. He called to them by a herald, that they could no longer hope for relief, that if they did not instantly surrender they should all be put to the sword. These brave men sent, as their only reply to the herald, a crossbow bolt, which wounded him. Then the duke, much irritated, ordered straw and faggots to be collected within the bailey and in the outside ditch, and all the wood they might have at hand, and set fire to, in order to smoke out the rebels. Very soon, in fact, the tower was licked by curls of flame, and communicated the fire to the hoarding and roof. Not one man cried "quarter!" for all seeing the fire gaining them, and blinded by the smoke, had retreated by a subterranean passage which from this tower communicated with the gateway of the castle—it was a Roman work preserved beneath the ancient curtain.[See [Fig. 36.]] In withdrawing, they had stopped up the outlet of this passage, which, moreover, was soon filled up by the smoking débris of the tower floors. The duke was persuaded that they had perished in the flames rather than surrender, and that set him gravely thinking.

To the last glimmering of daylight succeeded, for the combatants, the illumination of these three fires.

It seemed as if the heavens were bent on adding to the horror of the scene. The day had been fiercely hot; a storm soon arose accompanied by gusts of wind from the south-west, which blew down the smoke and strewed burning brands over the combatants.

At one time Anseric began to resume the offensive with his best soldiers by the barricade of the chapel; then transporting himself to the opposite palisade, he debouched along the western rampart upon the assailants, who on this side tried to get round the stable building. The direction of the wind was most unfavourable to the Burgundians; they received full in their faces both the smoke and the sparks from the western building. The attack languished, despite the efforts of the duke to obtain a decided advantage, and to bring his united force to bear on one point. A pouring rain and fatigue stopped the combatants about nine o'clock in the evening.

They almost touched one another, being only separated by the retrenchment. The rain fell so heavily that, in every direction, assailants and defenders sought shelter, until there remained none but the watchmen within and without the palisading.

At nightfall, Eleanor and her escort, habited as Burgundian soldiers, departed on horseback from the house of the vavassor, Pierre Landry, and under his guidance. They ascended the valley in silence, and saw before them the outline of the castle in dark relief before the sky, lit up by the fires. With hearts full of anxiety, none dared to express their fears.... What was burning? Was the enemy already within the bailey? Had he succeeded in setting fire to the northern defences of the castle? Having got to within two bowshots of the wooden tower, erected by the duke, at the junction of the river with the stream, they kept along the latter, forded it below the mill, left their horses there under the care of the vavassor's men, and ascended a-foot the slope of the plateau in the direction of the quarry. But at some distance from the opening, Pierre Landry, who was walking in front, perceived through the rain some men occupying the point of the plateau beneath the outer wall of the donjon. The duke had in fact sent some parties to watch the environs of the castle during the combat, and especially the base of the donjon, supposing, with reason, that this defence possessed a postern, as was usual, and fearing, that if the assault turned in his favour, the garrison, in despair of maintaining the defence any longer, after the taking of the bailey, might attempt to escape by some secret outlets.

Pierre Landry turned back towards Eleanor's escort and communicated to it this disagreeable discovery. To enter the quarry was not to be thought of. What was to be done?...

The vavassor concealed Eleanor, her two women, the three monks, and the twelve men-at-arms, as well as their captain, in the best way he could, and made his way along the escarpment by creeping through the underwood. Flashes of distant lightning enabled him from time to time to make out the eastern walls of the castle. No troop appeared on that side; he advanced therefore gradually as far as the foot of the rampart.