SECRET TERMS OF NIEL'S MISSION. 121 down that, till that undefinable time when a chap. newly imagined campaign might be brought to ! — a fortunate close, any enterprise attempted by storming would be a vain sacrifice of life. He did not, however, leave this conclusion to inference, but went on in set terms to denounce as too hazard- ous the idea of any great onslaught attempted by storm against either the Town or the Faubourg.* There was to be an artillery-fire carried on with- out undue haste under cover of which the 'ap- ' proaches ' might be pushed on so close to the defences as at last to allow of assault by compara- tively small numbers of men against either the Flagstaff Bastion or the Malakoff;! but those future assaults were not meant to take place until the investment of Sebastopol should be brought to completion by the newly projected campaign. After having thus shown what he meant as regards abstention from enterprise, Niel used a compendious adverb. He summed up his con- clusions by saying that the right course was this: — 'To go on "prudently" with the siege,' and to cut off ' as soon as possible the communi- ' cations [of the garrison] with the interior of the • Crimea.' i This plan was one framed in substan- The plan in general tial conformity with what Mel rightly under- conformity stood to be the wish of the French Emperor; S wish of •*■ " the French and so early as the 14th of February, it won the Emperor ; (quoted by Rousset, vol. ii. p. 34) he says : ' Croyez, Monsieur ' le Marechal, qu'on ne fera rien sans investir.'
- L. 45 et seq. in Letter, Niel to French Emp., Feb. 14, 1855.
t Ibid., line 49 et seq. t Ibid., line 56 et seq. § Speaking of a time not later than the 3d of February 1855,
