PETTY SORTIES. 17 of February did the French no physical harm ; chap. but they well might see in it an earnest of further attacks bursting up from the ground underfoot, and thus find themselves kept more or less on the torturing rack of expectancy. Todleben indeed was convinced that by the vigour of his countermining operations he caused the French to mistrust every foot of the ground they must tread when marching against the Flag- staff Bastion, and in that way did much to deter them from ever assaulting the Work.* There was no resort during the winter to that Petty sor- measure of a powerful sortie which, as some able critics conceived, the Russians ought to have hazarded, but of small sallies, ventured at night, the garrison made frequent use; and, although of The strain course reckoned singly, each enterprise of this theena»*» i • i of t,ie petty sort did no more than augment by a httlu trenches. the troubles of the harassed Allies, its repetition, occurring again and again and again, contributed and contributed sensibly towards the weight of that hostile pressure which Todleben was always applying; for the more — though by only small onsets — the guards of the trenches were kept on the alert, the greater of course was the strain — the continuous strain — on their powers. And, to all the vexations inflicted by these Novel con- triv&nc© pettv sorties, the Russians superadded at one resorted • i • ,i • i-i . to by the time a newly mvented oppression which, al- Russians f P . wheu at - though perhaps seemmg half comic to people tacking
- This impression is not strongly supported by French ac-
counts of the siege. VOL. VIII. B
