Instantly a flood of incandescent oil, bitumen and sulphur poured down like a wide sheet of flame upon the front ranks of the besiegers. They recoiled, trampled down the ranks behind them, and emitted hideous cries of anguish. Every drop of the molten liquid bored a hole through the flesh to the bone. At the same moment enormous blocks of stone and masses of sand rolled, rapid and irresistible, down the slope of the breach, overthrowing, breaking, crushing, smashing whatever stood in their way. Joined to this murderous defense was the frightfully effective fire of our arquebusiers, who shot unerringly, at close range, themselves safe, upon a foe in disorder. And yet, however decimated and broken, the royalists stuck to the assault until they finally reached the circumvallation. The exchange of arquebus shots then ceased and a furious hand-to-hand struggle ensued with swords, cutlasses and pikes. No quarter was given. The conflict was pitiless. The Rochelois women, among them Cornelia, armed with the iron rod of the censer, and the Bombarde, brandishing her harpoon, vied with the men in deeds of daring. These Rochelois women were everywhere among the male combatants, and cut a wide swath with their weapons, wielded by their white yet nervy arms, after the fashion of the Gallic women who made a front to the legions of Caesar. Twice did Colonel Plouernel, Captain Normand, Alderman Gargouillaud, Master Barbot, Antonicq Lebrenn, Louis Rennepont and their fellow defenders drive the Catholics back beyond the breach; twice did the Catholics, superior in numbers, drive the Rochelois back to the terrace of the rampart. Thus did the battle fluctuate, when Mayor Morrisson came to the aid of the Protestants with a fresh troop of citizens. The timely reinforcement changed the face of the struggle. For a third time rolled back beyond the breach, the assailants were precipitated into the pits or whipped down the slope. Their rout then became complete, wild, disordered. Our arquebusiers, whose fire had stopped during the hand-to-hand conflict, now took aim again, and decimated the fleeing, while our artillery mowed them down. This time the royalist rout was complete—final. Those of them who escaped the carnage, made haste to place themselves behind the shelter of their own lines.
Victory to the Rochelois! Oh, sons of Joel, victory! Long live the Commune!
CHAPTER XI.
CAPTURE OF CORNELIA.
The victory of the Rochelois was a bloody one, and dearly did we pay for it. We numbered over eleven hundred of our people killed or disabled, men and women. Cornelia Mirant received a wound upon the neck; the Bombarde perished in the breach. Marcienne, Odelin's widow, was struck by a bullet and killed near the rampart as she was bringing aid to a wounded soldier; Antonicq's arm was run through by a pike; Colonel Plouernel was carried to his house in a nearly dying condition with two arquebus shots in his chest. Louis Rennepont, his wife Theresa, Master Barbot, the Franc-Taupin and Serpentin, his assistant in mining, came safe and sound out of the engagement. The Rochelois gathered in the dead and wounded. The Lebrenn family carried to their house the corpse of Odelin's widow. A sad funeral march! But, alas, in these distressful times the exigencies of the public weal have precedence over the holiest of sorrows. One enjoys leisure to weep over his dead only after having avenged them. The triumph of a day does not remove the apprehensions for the morrow. The royalist assault, so valiantly repelled by the people of La Rochelle, might be renewed the very next day, due to the large reserve forces of the Catholic army, only a small portion of which took part in the attack upon the Bastion of the Evangelium. The City Council urged all the remaining able-bodied citizens to proceed without delay to repair the breach, seeing that the moon, then at her full, would light them at their work during the whole night. Fresh defenses were to be immediately raised upon the side of the assaulted bastion. Then, also, famine was staring the city in the face. Precautions were needed against that emergency. Captain Mirant's ships, which were to revictual the city and replenish its magazines of war, still failed to be descried at sea, notwithstanding a strong wind rose from the southwest towards sunset. The last bags of beans were distributed among the combatants, whose exhaustion demanded immediate attention after the day's conflict. The supply barely sufficed to allay the pangs of hunger. Consequently, in order to insure food for the next day, the women and children were summoned by the aldermen to be at the Two Mills Gate by one o'clock in the morning, the hour of low tide, and favorable for the digging of clams. The gathering of these mollusks offered a precious resource to the besieged, but it was as perilous as battle itself. The Bayhead redoubt, raised by the royalists at the extremity of the tongue of land that ran deep into the offing, could sweep with its cannon the beach on which the clams were to be dug. Towards one in the morning the City Hall bell rang the summons. Upon hearing the agreed-upon signal, the Rochelois women of all conditions issued forth with those of their children who were considered strong enough to join the expedition. Each was equipped with a basket. They met at the Two Mills Gate where they found the wife and two daughters of Morrisson the Mayor. They set the example of public spirit. Accordingly, while the male population of La Rochelle was busily engaged in repairing the breach, the women and children sallied forth from the city in search of provisions for all. Although smarting from her wound, and despite the protests of Antonicq, Cornelia Mirant determined to share with Theresa Rennepont the risks of the nocturnal expedition after clams. She joined the troop of women and children.
About four or five hundred Rochelois women issued forth from the Two Mills Gate, situated near the Lantern Tower, in search of clams to feed the population. They were soon upon the beach. Bounded on the right by a ledge of rocks, the beach extended to the left as far as the roadstead in front of the inner port of La Rochelle, a roadstead narrowed towards its entrance by two tongues of land, each of which was armed with a hostile redoubt. The Bayhead redoubt could at once cover with its fire the narrow entrance of the bay, and sweep the full length and breadth of the beach upon which the Rochelois women now scattered and were actively engaged in picking up at the foot of the rocks, aided by the light of the moon, the mollusks that they came in search of. At the start the Bayhead redoubt gave them no trouble, although the enemy's attention must undoubtedly have been attracted by the large number of white head-covers and scarlet skirts, the time-honored costume of the Rochelois women. Already the baskets were handsomely filling with clams—the "celestial manna" as Mayor Morrisson called them—when suddenly a bright flash of light threw its reflection upon the small puddles of water on the beach, a detonation was heard, and a light cloud of smoke rose above the redoubt. A shiver ran over the clam-digging Rochelois women, and profound silence took the place of their previous chatter.
"The royalists have seen us!" said Theresa Rennepont to Cornelia. "They have begun firing upon us."
"No!" cried Cornelia with mixed joy and alarm as she looked in the direction of the battery. "The enemy is firing upon my father's brigantines! There they are! There they are, at last! God be praised! If they enter port, La Rochelle is saved from famine! Do you see them, Theresa? Do you see, yonder, their white sails glistening in the moonlight? The ships are drawing near. They come laden with victory to us!"
And the young maid, moved with a joy that overcame her alarm, raised her beautiful face to heaven, and in a voice quivering with enthusiasm exclaimed: "Oh, Lord! Guard my father's life! Grant victory to the sacred cause of freedom!"
All thought of the clams was instantly dropped. The women pressed close to the water's edge; with eyes fixed upon the ships, they awaited anxiously the issue of the combat upon which depended the victualing of their city. It was a solemn moment; an imposing spectacle. The further extremities of the two tongues of land that enclosed the outer bay and left but a narrow entrance to the port, threw their black profiles upon the waves, silvered by the moon. The four brigantines were sailing in single file before the wind with a full spread of canvas, towards the dangerous passage which they had to enter under the cross fire of the enemy's redoubts. A rapid and frightful cannonade followed upon the first shot which had startled the women. Already the first one of the four vessels had entered the passage, when, despite the firmness of her nature, Cornelia emitted a cry of distress and said in consternation to Theresa:
"Look, the mast of the forward brigantine is down! It must have been struck by a ball! Good God, my father is lost if he should be on that vessel—dismantled—unable to move—exposed to the fire of the enemy!"