Annals of a Fortress

by Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc

Fig. 46.

Seeing they could make no impression, the duke withdrew his men, and had mantelets brought forward and placed perpendicularly to the wall, and fronting the tower in the angle, and then a small bosson on wheels—its head strongly armed with a solid iron point. The wheels of this bosson were screened ([Fig. 46]), to shelter those engaged in working it. Twenty men under shelter, with heavy crowbars, were awaiting the effect of the bosson. The fourth time it encountered the palisade a dozen stakes were greatly shaken, and the cross-rails broken. Then the pioneers, armed with crowbars, set about bringing down the shaken stakes, or at least turning them aside. The assaulting column threw itself upon the openings. There was a hand-to-hand fight, and so densely were they pressed together, that the men posted in the tower at the corner dared not shoot for fear of wounding their comrades.

On the opposite side the Burgundians had succeeded in making a wide gap in the wall south of the chapel; and screened by its ruins, they attacked the angle of the retrenchment E.[See [Fig. 45.]] From the east curtain, however, the garrison discharged stones and arrows on their rear; and this assault was but feeble, as the duke was entirely occupied with directing the others.

Anseric defended this point by the desire of the baron, who had urged him to resume the offensive, supported by the building F, however difficult the undertaking might be.

One of the men posted at the defences of the gate hurried down, and, passing the postern, came and told him that the retrenchment, C, was forced and his people in great danger at this point. Anseric, therefore, taking two hundred and fifty men whom he had with him, issued from the retrenchment by its eastern extremity, rushed furiously on the assailants, threw them into disorder, and leaving forty brave soldiers to defend the gap in the chapel, and the barricade, B, that had remained almost intact, traversed the area of the bailey in an oblique direction, crossed the retrenchment, A, which was partly destroyed, and fell on the left flank of the assailants, uttering the war-cry: "Roche-Pont! Roche-Pont!" ... The Burgundians, surprised by this unforeseen attack and not knowing whence these soldiers came, abandoned the retrenchment, the bosson, and even the breach, C.

The baron's troops, seeing this, plucked up courage, and killing all that had remained within the bailey, occupied the breach, c, once more, while Anseric was occupying the barricade, C. The bosson was destroyed with hatchets, and the mantelets left by the enemy were put in readiness for repairing the broken-down palisades.

The duke was furious, and had broken his sword on the backs of the runaways. But no further attempt could be made that day, and the advantages he had gained with so much trouble were jeopardized. The defenders were seen barricading the breaches, and he could hear the cries of the unfortunate men who had remained in the bailey, and were being pitilessly massacred.

The Burgundians had lost more than two thousand men since the commencement of the siege; and on the 7th of June the duke's army amounted to no more than four thousand five hundred or five thousand men at most. The besieged were reduced to about a thousand; but they were full of hope, and assured of success, while the besiegers were losing confidence. Their advantages had been gained only by enormous sacrifices, and this last affair threatened altogether to "demoralize" them.