Fig. 58— Taking of an artillery tower.
After the losses sustained since the commencement of the siege, the garrison scarcely reckoned more than two thousand available men, for typhus was already devastating the town; three-fourths of the wounded crowded together in the abbey were attacked by it. The good monks tended them with their utmost care, but they themselves were largely sacrificed to the contagion; and of a community of a hundred and fifty in number scarcely more than fifty survived. The progress of the besieger, however, seemed only to increase the determination of the inhabitants, and the women worked heartily at the defences. They were the first to cry shame on those of the defenders who manifested despondency.
During the night between the 24th and 25th, the Sire de Montcler strengthened the retrenchment. From A to B[[Fig. 58.]] he took advantage of the ancient enclosure-wall of the abbot's pleasance, then occupied by dwellings. A culverin was mounted on a terrace at B. The retrenchment leading from C to D, which had been made of earth and the débris of the houses demolished at this point, was armed with three culverins at C, at E, and D.
The French on their side had cleared the platform of the conquered tower, G, had well gabioned the parapet, and mounted three pieces pointed at the retrenchment, and a spirole directed against the tower, K, which remained in the power of the Burgundians.
The women, children, and old men were employed in strengthening also the second retrenchment, I, M, behind the abbey wall, and the junction, M, N. This second retrenchment was armed with three pieces. Places of egress were reserved at the extremities and through the gate, O, of the abbey.
The rain continued during the 25th of September, which passed without any serious engagement. The combatants were trying one another's strength. The garrison was not numerous enough to allow of their leaving a post at the tête du pont. This work was abandoned on the night between the 25th and 26th, and the enemy entered it without striking a blow.
But as they were fired on by the bombard of boulevard I,[See [Fig. 48.]] they did not advance along the ascent, but took shelter behind the cavalier of the left bank. The Sire de Montcler conjectured, however, that the French were preparing a real or feigned attack on this side.
During the night, thirty-six feet of the northern curtain, near the tower, G, fell into the ditch, reaching from a to b; the miners had been working for two days to accomplish this. On the morning of the 26th of September, the besiegers opened fire against the retrenchment. The dominant position of the tower, G, gave them a great advantage; and though the garrison did their best to reply, the culverins, C and D, were dismounted and the gabions thrown down about noon, when orders were given for the assault. A strong column of infantry advanced through the breach, a b, cutlasses in hand, and in fine order. But from the platform of the tower, F, which had remained in the power of the Burgundians, two culverins fired simultaneously on this column. Messire Charles d'Amboise supposed that the pieces in this tower had been silenced, and so they had been. But during the night, the Sire de Montcler had hoisted up three of the small pieces of the lower battery through the vault holes, and had masked them under the rubbish of the parapets. This discharge produced disorder in the column of the assailants. Fortunately for them, the pieces of the outer boulevard, in the power of the French, began to fire in their turn on the platform of the tower, P, and soon silenced the Burgundian spiroles.
The assault was vigorous, well directed and well sustained, while from without the French did not cease firing on the gate and tower F, so that those of the garrison who had remained in the upper works of the gate had to abandon them and escape by the curtain and tower F.