A.D. 1472.
This siege brings the same actors on the stage, and we are principally induced to offer it to our readers by the circumstance of the detestable homicide meeting in it with a reverse, and that partly occasioned by women.
Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, was engaged in an inveterate war with Louis XI. Learning there was but a weak garrison in Beauvais, he marched towards that city, with the expectation of entering it without opposition; and so it proved with the faubourgs, and the Burgundians thought themselves masters of the place; but the citizens, the moment they were aware of their danger, closed their gates, and took their posts on the walls like men. Not only these: the women and maidens insisted upon taking part in this honourable defence. Led by Joan Hachette, they ranged themselves on the parts of the walls the least protected; and one of these heroines even obtained an enemy’s standard, and bore it in triumph into the city. The principal attack of the besiegers was directed against the gate of Bresle: the cannon had already beaten it in; the breach was open, and the city would have been taken, if the inhabitants had not heaped together on the spot an immense mass of fagots and combustible matters. The flames of this pile proved an efficient check to the Burgundians. The assault began at eight o’clock in the morning, and was still raging, when, towards the decline of day, a noble body of troops was seen entering by the Paris gate. These brave fellows, having marched fourteen leagues without halting, gave their horses and equipments to the care of the women and girls, and flew to those parts of the walls where the fight was hottest. The besiegers, though numbering eighty thousand, could not resist the united valour of the garrison and the new comers; they soon wavered, and at length fled to their camp in disorder. More defenders arrived by daybreak; the citizens received them as liberators; they spread tables for them in the streets and public places, cheered them with refreshments, and afterwards accompanied them to the walls. The duke of Burgundy then perceived, but too late, a great error he had committed. Instead of investing Beauvais with a numerous army, he had attacked it on one side only: succours and convoys arrived from all parts. The duke himself began to experience the horrors of famine; the French, scouring the country, intercepted his convoys. Everything announced a fruitless enterprise; but he resolved, before raising the siege, to attempt a general assault. The besieged, under the orders of Marshal De Rouault, prepared to receive him. The marshal wanted to relieve La Roche-Tesson and Fontenailles; but as they had arrived first, and had established themselves at the gate of Bresle, which was the post of danger, they complained of removal as of an affront, and obtained permission to retain a post they had kept night and day. The trumpets sounded, the cannon roared, the Burgundians advanced, fire and sword in hand; they planted their ladders, mounted the breaches, and attacked the besieged: the latter received them with firmness; they precipitated them, they crushed them, or beat them back from their walls. Raging like a wild bull, Charles rallied his soldiers and led them back to the assault; but they were again repulsed, with greater loss than before. How willingly we may suppose, Charles sounded a retreat. Had it not been for the excessive precaution of some of the burgesses, his army must have been entirely destroyed: they had walled up the gates on the side next the Burgundians, which impeded the sortie. Charles raised the siege on the 10th of July. Louis XI. rewarded the valour and fidelity of the inhabitants by an exemption from imposts. As the women had exhibited most ardour in defence of Beauvais, he ordered that they should take precedence of the men in the fête which was celebrated every year, on the 10th of July, in honour of their deliverance from the power of a man known to be a sanguinary conqueror.
GRENADA.
A.D. 1491.
Ferdinand V., king of Arragon, besieged Boabdil, the last king of the Moors of Grenada, in his capital, with an army of fifty thousand men. Grenada, surrounded by a double wall, fortified by one thousand and thirty towers, had two citadels, one of which served as a palace for the king. An army of thirty thousand Moors was within the walls; it had an immense and warlike population, and magnificent stores of munitions and provisions seemed to render it impregnable. Ferdinand did not attack Grenada according to the usual system of sieges; he employed neither lines, nor trenches, nor artillery: he surrounded his own camp with walls and works. His sole aim was to starve the enemy, and make himself master of all the passages; he rooted up the trees, he burnt the houses, and in a moment changed a delightful territory into a dry and arid desert. The garrison endeavoured to make sorties, but it was overwhelmed by numbers, and always proved unfortunate. The Saracens flattered themselves that the rigours of winter would oblige the Christians to depart; but their hopes were disappointed. Ferdinand’s camp became a fortified city, furnished with solid fire-proof houses. The Moors saw with grief that nothing could discourage the Castilians. The rigours of famine began to be felt, and cold augmented both public and private misery. In this extremity it was determined to treat with Ferdinand, and they consented to surrender, if not relieved within sixty days. Scarcely had the Moorish king signed the treaty than he repented of it; the thoughts of descending from his throne plunged him into the deepest grief, and yet he did not dare to retract, so great were the evils that surrounded him. His army could not endure the idea of submitting to the Christians, and the inhabitants incessantly implored the assistance of God and of Mahomet. Suddenly an Alfaique excited the people to revolt; at his voice twenty thousand men took arms. Boabdil required all his eloquence to restore order; he pointed out to them, with tears in his eyes, that if they preferred life to a certain death, they were bound by the stern necessity of observing the capitulation. The sedition was appeased, but the public despair was so great, that the king of the Moors, dreading to see it renewed, hastened to surrender all his forts, and to repair to the camp of the conqueror. Thus, after a duration of seven hundred and sixty-two years, terminated the domination of the Moors in Spain.
VIENNA.
Vienna, from its geographical position and its political importance, has been subjected to several sieges, and yet has occasionally, like Rome, sometimes escaped those fearful visitations when it might have expected them.