Henry IV. had been engaged in partisan warfare; but then he had only his own life at stake. As a sovereign he thought it his duty not to run risks; and before launching into the great enterprises he had in view, and which might change the face of Europe, he wished to put fortune on his side as far as possible. For more than six years, in concert with Sully, he had lost not a day or an hour in preparing for France, which had been a prey to civil war and invasion at the end of the sixteenth century, a future of the noblest order, and which might have secured to it the most honourable destiny, if the hand of an assassin had not in a single day destroyed hopes founded in a wise policy and the most thoughtful foresight.
This prince knew by experience that in war a check is always possible, even when fortune is, or seems to be, entirely on our side, and that the talent of a general consists in his ability to discover new resources after a reverse. Success in arms is secure in proportion to the foresight exercised in preventing a first reverse from becoming a disaster. Henry IV. therefore set about preparing a good line of retreat and supply in the rear of the army, which he was intending to lead in person towards the east. He put in a state of defence the towns and important strategic points from Châlons-sur-Saône, passing through Beaune, Dijon, Langres, along the course of the Haute-Marne, and from Langres to Chaumont, Saint-Dizier, Châlons, Reims, Laon, Péronne, and Amiens. Verdun and Metz had been visited by him, with a view to examining their defences. At Metz he had ordered works of considerable importance. The town of La Roche-Pont was comprised in that portion of this line of defence which lay between Dijon and Langres. The engineer Errard de Bar-le-Duc had been entrusted with these operations, beginning with Châlons-sur-Saône. He had, we may observe, merited the confidence reposed in him by the king, for he had given proofs of considerable ability and ingenuity.
Errard de Bar-le-Duc made use of the ancient walls, considering them suitable for defence at close quarters; but he constructed works outside which would command the country, and force the besieger to commence his operations at a distance of one thousand or one thousand two hundred yards. The system of boulevards was still maintained, but these, instead of presenting only an isolated obstacle, defended each other by crossing their fire, and were, in fact, true bastions.
Fig. 59.—The Bastions of Errard de Bar-le-Duc.
The three great round towers on the north of the cité of La Roche-Pont were then much dilapidated. Errard had them terraced, and then surrounded them with earthworks with walled escarpments. Towards the plateau fronting the north he had a great tenaille constructed with a double ditch and ravelin. [Fig. 59] gives the plan of the cité after the operations planned by Errard. Besides the works just mentioned, indicated at A, B, C and D, the king's engineer raised the bastions, E, F, G, H, and I, which crossed their fires, and whose orillons masked small pieces designed to flank the old ramparts.
Most of the old towers were lowered and terraced to receive cannon. The ancient castle, of which little more than the donjon and some outbuildings remained, was surrounded by a bastioned enclosure, with a tenaille on the town side.
The lower town, towards the west, though reduced to narrow dimensions, continued nearly in the condition already described. As to the upper town, after the conflagration of the last siege, it had been rebuilt in a very indifferent style. Under Francis I., the abbey had been secularised, and its ancient church was served by a Chapter. The old stone bridge near the outflow of the rivulet still existed, and at O was a second wooden bridge connecting the two shores. The bridge, P, had fallen into ruins and had not been rebuilt.
