"Un fort Chastel se fust drécié:
Le sommet plus haut en repose
Que les murs de Gaillart grant chose."
In Roy. MS. 20, D. i., of about the close of this century, the wooden Tower occurs in several of the miniatures. It is constructed in the manner of a scaffolding, having at the top an open platform filled with archers: its height, that of the city walls, close to which it is placed. Examples will be found on folios 305, 306 and 317. The besieged, when they were able to discover the point to which the assaulting tower was to be moved, loosened the soil in that spot by digging; so that, when the ponderous machine arrived, it was overturned by its fore-wheels sinking into the soft earth[416]. The Chat-Chastel combined the beffroi and the cattus.
But the best account that can be offered of the Siege operations of this time, is furnished by a cotemporary writer, the Seneschal of Carcassone; himself the commander of the defending forces. This very curious document is preserved in the Archives of France, and has been published in the Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes, vol. vii. p. 363. Carcassone was besieged in the autumn of 1240 by the son of the Vicomte de Béziers; and the defender of the city, Guillaume des Ormes, sends to Queen Blanche, regent of the kingdom during the absence of Saint Louis, an exact account of the proceedings. Carcassone was surrounded with a double wall, furnished as usual with towers, and having several barbicans in advance of its various gates. The object of the Barbican was to afford the besieged the means of a flanking attack: it was formed something like a street, with a wall on each side, terminating in a kind of open tower: and it thus became necessary that the enemy should act in the first instance against this outwork; for, by assaulting the curtain, they would be exposed to a flank attack from the barbican, and might also be assailed in the rear by sorties from the head of the work.
"To his most excellent and highly illustrious mistress, Blanche, by the grace of God, Queen of the French, William des Ormes, Seneschal of Carcassone, her humble and devoted servant, greeting and faithful service.
"Madame, this is to let you know that the city of Carcassone was besieged by him who calls himself the Viscount, and by his accomplices, on the Monday following the Octave of the Nativity of the Blessed Mary[417]. And immediately we who were within the city took from them the suburb Graveillant, which is before the Toulouse gate; and thence we obtained much timber, which was of great use to us. The said suburb extended from the Barbican of the city as far as the corner of the said city. And the same day, our enemies, through the multitude of their forces, took from us a mill. Afterwards, Olivier de Termes, Bernard Hugon de Serre-Longue, Géraud d'Aniort, and those who were with them, lodged themselves between the corner of the city and the water; and there, on the same day, by means of the ditches in that spot, and by breaking up the roads which lay between them and us, they so fortified themselves that we could by no means get at them.
"On another side, between the bridge and the Castle Barbican, Pierre de Fenouillet and Renaud de Puy, Guillaume Fort, Pierre de la Tour, and many others of Carcassone, established themselves. And at both these places they had so many Cross-bowmen[418], that no man could stir out of the city without being wounded. Afterwards they set up a mangonel before our barbican, when we lost no time in opposing to it from within an excellent Turkish petrary[419], which played upon the mangonel and those about it; so that when they essayed to cast upon us, and saw the beam of our petrary in motion, they fled, utterly abandoning their mangonel. And in that place they made ditches and palisades. Yet, as often as we discharged our petrary, we drove them from it, still being unable to approach the spot on account of the ditches, the pits, and the bolts from their bows(?)—propter fossata, quarellos et puteos qui ibi erant.
"Moreover, Madame, they began to mine at the barbican of the Narbonne gate; and we, having by listening ascertained where they were at work, proceeded to countermine; and we built within the barbican a strong stone wall, so as still to retain half the barbican in surety: they then set fire to the props of their mine, and a breach was made in the outer part of our barbican.
"They also began to mine against another tower (tornellam) of the outer ballium, but by countermining we succeeded in dispossessing them of the work. Afterwards they began (to mine) beneath another wall, and destroyed two of our battlements (cranellos de liceis): but we speedily set up a good strong palisade between us.
"They mined also at the corner of the city, towards the bishop's house, and beginning their mine from a very great distance, they came beneath a certain Saracenic wall (murum sarraceneum[420]) to the wall of the ballium, which, when we perceived, we forthwith made a good strong palisade between us and them, and countermined. Then they set fire to the props of their mine, and brought down about ten fathoms of our battlements. But we speedily made a good strong palisade, on the top of which we constructed a good bretèche[421], with good loopholes for arrows; so that none of them dared to come near us in this place.
"They began also to mine at the barbican of the Porte de Rhodez, working underneath in order to reach our wall; and in that place they formed a wonderfully large passage. But when we perceived this, we immediately made, on each side of their work, a great and strong palisade; and we also countermined, and having broken into their mine, speedily dispossessed them of it.