THE OPENING OF THE SIEGE. 253 with sallies at niglit, and the cannonades with CHAP, which he assailed his besiegers and their works rarely ceased for any long time, and were some- Ja'iueTand' times of exceeding power. It is recorded that cannonades. one day — the 14th of October — and in the space of a single liour, there were hnrled against the works of the French no less than 800 cannon-shot ; with a result which included a good deal of harm to the parapets, bnt killing only two men and wounding three.* The next day, for a time, a fire Further of the same kind was again opened ; but notwith- the^Frencii works. standing all the hindrances offered, the Frencli works on Mount Rodolph grew fast towards com- pletion, and were soon connected with one an- other, as also with the ground in their rear, by fitting lines of entrenchment. Whilst the French, in most places, had beneath Hindrances them a fair enough depth of such earth as will bytheEng- yield to the pickaxe and spade, the ground in front of the English was almost bare rock — rock covered but thinly, where covered at all, with soil a few inches deep. Partly from that cause, partly from the configuration of the ground, and partly from the failure of the above-stated pro- posal for drawing the investment more close, our engineers were prevented from fastening, as the French had been able to do, upon ground at all near to the fortress. The most that the English
- Niel, p. 53 ; and Todleben, p. 300, who gives the number
of shots at 960. The object of these cannonades of the 14th and 15th of October was to test the working of the Piussian batteries, and prepare by actual experiment for the dav of con- flict.— Todleben, p. 299.
