220 TKOUBLED COUNSELS CHAPTER VIII. TROUBLED COUNSELS OF THE FKENCH. chap. The work of destruction effected in the two White — Kedoubts, in the Kamtchatka Lunette, and above all, in the clusters of batteries which included the Flagstaff Bastion, must needs have been partly descried, and partly also inferred by many of the artillerymen busied in the Trench advanced batteries ; * but, supposing him to have bestowed little care on their necessarily piecemeal accounts, it was possible for General Canrobert to be far from completely aware of the havoc his siege- guns had wrought ; and if, on the other hand, knowing the whole, or one-half of the truth, he Tendency of must have found himself strangely embarrassed bombard- by the exigencies of his Emperor's plot ; since, inenttode- range the to own that the April Bombardment had opened working of r Niei's'mis- fit paths for assault, would be almost the same ' slon." * as acknowledging that sound warlike counsels
- For the extent of that work of destruction, see ante, pp.
187-189.
