this breach practicable for the assault, the besiegers had enlarged it outside and shaped it with cannon shots.
The ground floor into which this breach opened was a large round hall, quite bare, with a central column holding up the keystone of the arch. This hall, the largest in the keep, was no less than forty feet in diameter. Each story in the tower formed a similar room, but smaller, with little cells in the embrasures of the loopholes. The hall on the ground floor had no loopholes, no air holes, no windows; about as much daylight and fresh air as a tomb.
The door to the oubliettes, made of iron rather than wood, was in the hall of the ground floor. Another door in this hall opened on a staircase leading to the upper rooms. All the staircases were built in the thickness of the wall.
The besiegers had an opportunity to reach this low hall through the breach which they had made. This hall taken, it remained for them to take the tower.
No one had ever been able to breathe in this low hall. No one had ever spent twenty-four hours there without being asphyxiated. Now, owing to the breach, it was possible to live there.
This is why the beleaguered did not close the breach.
Moreover, what would be the advantage? The cannon would open it again.
They fixed an iron cresset into the wall, placed a torch in it, and this lighted the ground floor.
Now, how could they defend themselves there?
To wall up the breach was easy, but of no use. A retirade would be more desirable. A retirade is an intrenchment at right angles, a sort of chevronned barricade, which admits of converging the musketry on the assailants, and, while leaving the breach open outside, obstructs it on the inside. The materials were not lacking; they constructed a retirade, with embrasures through which to pass the barrels of the guns. The angle of the retirade rested on the central column; the two sides touched the wall. Having got this ready, they put fougades in suitable places.
The marquis directed everything. Inspirer, disposer, guide, and master,—appalling soul.
Lantenac belonged to that race of warriors of the eighteenth century who, when eighty years old, saved
