THE ENEMY'S GREAT NIGHT ATTACK. 91 to receive any wholesome impulsion from the chap. sight or the sound of the fire thus newly be- L_ friending him. His masses still remained hang- ing back on the verge of the parallel, and ap- parently with the loss of their headway they lost all their clearness of purpose. There were glimmers of light in the sky which enabled the French to observe that their assailants were gathering into groups, like men — not stricken with panic, yet — bewildered, and in need of sure guidance. The onset had spent its force, and the counter-sway followed. Whether simply, as Todleben says, obeying their general's signals reiterated again and again, or yielding, as Niel asserts, to the prowess of d'Autemarre's force, the assailants at all points fell back. They were pressed for a while in retreat, but soon found the shelter they needed beneath the guns of the fortress.* The conflict thus sustained by the French had The sorties 6ff6Ct6(l hardly yet reached its height when their English against the neighbours, established on the Woronzoff Ridge, smle-works. were also becoming engaged in what — because now far extending — seemed almost a midnight battle. In designing the enterprise levelled against rout ' deroute complete ' ; but it being undisputed that the French, on the whole, stood fast and repulsed the attack, I have not been brought to think that my statement in the text is unwarranted.
- Todleben, vol. ii. p. 68 el seq.; Niel, p. 177 et seq. The two
accounts are conflicting.
