The Bastion of the Evangelium, upon which the enemy had long been concentrating all their forces, formed a sharply protruding angle. Its flanks were not sufficiently protected by other works of defense.

Accordingly, by directing against the left flank of the bastion the fire of their princ.i.p.al batteries, the enemy had opened a breach in the rampart by the repeated pounding of their shots. At the place where the breach was effected, the upper part of the earthworks, to a width of about fifty feet, crumbled down into the moat, filling it up so fully as to render an a.s.sault practicable. Thanks to this ma.s.s of debris which answered the purpose of a bridge, the a.s.sailants could cross the fosse on a run, could scale the last steps of the last wall already laid in ruins, and could enter the city, provided they could bear down the defenders who stood in the breach. From the top of the bastion the eye swept the plain far and wide. A cannon-shot off, the long line of the enemy's trenches could be seen, stretching from the suburb of St. Eloi on the edge of the salt marshes, to the suburb of Colombier. That line bounded the field from end to end; it intercepted the roads to Limoges and Nantes at the crossings of which the batteries were erected which broke a breach through the bastion. The whole stretch between the trenches of the besiegers and the fortifications of the city--one time covered with trees and houses--now lay bare, exposed, devastated, and deeply furrowed by the projectiles. Beyond the desert waste, lay the enemy's entrenchments--earthworks strengthened with gabions and trunks of trees, and here and there crenelated with the embrasures for their batteries. Behind that line of earthworks, the tops of the officers'

tents, surmounted with bannerets and floating pennants, could be seen.

Finally, on the extreme horizon rose the undulating and woody hills. The breach once made, the Catholics suspended their fire in order to open it again shortly before marching to the a.s.sault. It was in answer to the thunder of the cannonade, which announced an imminent and decisive attack, that the old pastor crossed the square of the City Hall at the head of his bevy of Rochelois women, recruited the Bombarde and her companions, and wended his course to the Bastion of the Evangelium. At that place about one-half of the defenders of La Roch.e.l.le were gathered, ready for a stubborn conflict. The other troops, distributed in other places, were to be on the alert to repel other attacks. The Council of defense foresaw that the enemy, while hurling one column against the breach, would undoubtedly attempt a simultaneous a.s.sault upon other places; consequently women were commissioned to close up the breach as best they might with logs of wood and other material. Colonel Plouernel, upon whom the defense of the bastion that day devolved, and Captain Gargouillaud, in charge of the artillery, gave their last orders. The bourgeois cannoniers were pointing their pieces in advance upon the open and absolutely exposed ground which the royalists had to cross when they sallied from their trenches in order to reach the opposite side of the fosse where the breach was effected. The breach was wide; nevertheless, before they could reach the parapet, the besiegers would have to clamber over a heap of debris ten or eleven feet high, on the top of which a redoubtable engine of defense was mounted, and placed in charge of the women of La Roch.e.l.le. This engine of war, an invention of Master Barbot the boilermaker, received the name of the _censer_. It consisted of a huge copper basin, holding a ton, suspended from iron chains at the end of a long beam that revolved upon an axis, and was so adjusted to a post firmly set in the ground, that by means of a slight motion imparted to the beam, the huge caldron would empty upon the heads of the a.s.sailants the deadly fluid that it was filled with, to wit, a mixture of boiling tar, sulphur and oil. A number of Rochelois women, Theresa Rennepont and Cornelia my betrothed among them, were busy either keeping up the fire under the copper basin, or pouring into it the oil, tar and sulphur from little kegs that lay near at hand. With her sleeves rolled back above her elbows, and leaving her strong white arms exposed, Cornelia stirred the steaming mixture with an iron rod supplied with a wooden handle.

Master Barbot--his head covered with an iron morion, his chest protected with a brigandine, and his cutla.s.s and dagger by his side--leaned upon the barrel of his arquebus and smiled complacently upon his invention.

From time to time he would address the women and girls at work.

"Courage, my brave girl!" he said to Cornelia. "Mix up the oil well with the tar and sulphur. Make the mixture thick, soft, and toothsome, like those omelettes made of eggs, flour and cheese that you are so skilled in dishing up, and which your good father and myself relish so much! But the devil take those dainty thoughts! In these days of dearth one may deem himself happy if he but have a handful of beans. By the way of famine and of your father--the heavy clouds that are rising yonder in the south almost always announce a change of wind. Mayhap we shall see this very day the brigantines of Captain Mirant, loaded with wheat and powder, sailing before the wind into port, every inch of sail spread to the breeze, and successfully running the gauntlet of the royalist guns.

Long live the Commune!"

"May G.o.d hear you, Master Barbot! I would then embrace my father this very day, and the threatened famine would be at end," answered Cornelia without interrupting her work of stirring the mixture, into which Theresa Rennepont just emptied a bucketful of sulphur--on account of which Master Barbot called out to her:

"No more sulphur, my dear Theresa. The tar and oil must predominate in the infernal broth. The sulphur is thrown in only to improve the taste by pleasing the eye with the pretty bluish flame, that gambols on the surface of the incandescent fluid. Now, my little girls, turn the beam just a little to one side in order to remove the basin from the fire without cooling off the broth. We shall swing it back over the fire the instant the Catholics run to the a.s.sault--then we shall dish up the broth to them, hot and nice."

While these Rochelois women were thus engaged in preparing the censer, others rolled enormous blocks of stone--the debris of the bastion that was shattered by the enemy's cannonade--and placed them in such positions over the breach that a child's finger could hurl them down upon the a.s.saulting column. Others rolled barrels of sand, which after having served for protection to the arquebusiers on the ramparts, were likewise to be rolled down the steep declivity which the enemy had to climb. Finally, a large number of women were busy preparing stretchers for the wounded. These women worked under the direction of Marcienne, Odelin's widow. Theresa and Cornelia, left for a moment at leisure from their work on the censer, came over to the widow, and were presently joined by Louis Rennepont and Antonicq.

"Mother," said Antonicq, tenderly addressing Marcienne, "when I left the house this morning at dawn you were asleep; I could not tell you good-bye--embrace me!"

Marcienne understood what her son meant. A murderous a.s.sault was about to be engaged. Perhaps they were not to meet again alive. She took Antonicq in her arms, and pressing him to her breast she said in a moved yet firm voice: "Blessings upon you, my son, who never caused me any grief! If, like your father, you should die in battle against the papists, you will have acted like an upright man to the very end. Should I succ.u.mb, you will carry with you my last blessing. And you also, Cornelia," added Marcienne, "I bless you, my child. I shall die happy in the knowledge that Antonicq found in you a heart worthy of his own in virtue and bravery. You have been the best of daughters to your parents--you will likewise be a tender wife to your husband."

Odelin's widow was giving expression to these sentiments when Louis Rennepont, after exchanging in a low voice a few words with his wife Theresa, words such as the solemnity of the occasion prompted, cried out aloud: "Look yonder! there, under us--among the debris of the breach--is not that the Franc-Taupin? Your uncle seems to be emerging from underground. He must be preparing some trick of his trade."

"It is he, indeed!" exclaimed Antonicq, no less surprised than his brother-in-law. "And there is my apprentice Serpentin also--who is following the Franc-Taupin out of the hole."

These words drew the attention of Cornelia, Theresa and Odelin's widow.

They looked down the steep slope formed by the ruins of that portion of the bastion that the enemy had demolished. The Franc-Taupin had emerged from a narrow and deep excavation, dug under the ruins. A lad of thirteen or fourteen years followed him. They covered up the opening that had given them egress. After doing so, Serpentin, the apprentice of the armorer Antonicq, went down upon his knees, and moving backward on all fours, uncoiled, under the directions of the Franc-Taupin, a long thin fuse, the other end of which was deep down the excavation which they had just covered. Still moving towards the parapet, Serpentin continued to uncoil the fuse, and, upon orders from the Franc-Taupin, stopped at about twenty paces from the wall and sat down on a stone.

"Halloa, uncle!" cried Antonicq, leaning over the edge of one of the embrasures. "Here we are; come and join us."

Hearing his nephew's voice, the Franc-Taupin raised his head, made him a sign to wait, and after giving Serpentin some further directions, the aged soldier clambered over the ruins with remarkable agility for a man of his years, and walked over to where Antonicq stood waiting for him.

"Where do you come from, uncle?"

"Well, my boy, what do you expect of me? A _taupin_ I was in my young days, and now in my old days I relapse into my old trade. I come from underground, through a shaft that I dug through the ruins with the aid of Serpentin, about a hundred paces from here. There I laid a mine, right in the middle of the breach where the good Catholics will soon be running to the a.s.sault. The moment I see them there I shall lovingly set the fuse on fire--and, triple petard! the St. Bartholomew lambkins will leap up in the air yelling and spitting fire like five hundred devils, their heads down, their legs skyward. The dance will end with a shower of shattered limbs."

"Well schemed, my old mole!" said Master Barbot. "Fire below, fire above, like the beautiful sheets that I hammer on the anvil. The burning lava of my censer will blaze over the skulls of the royalists, your fuse will blaze under the soles of their feet, and hurl the miscreants into the air capering, turning somersaults, whirling, cavorting, and--" but suddenly breaking off, Master Barbot let himself down upon the ground, and joining the word to the deed, called out:

"Down upon your faces, everybody! Look out for the bullets!"

Master Barbot's advice was quickly followed. Everybody near him threw himself down flat at the very moment that a volley of bullets whistled overhead or struck the parapet, some ricocheting and upturning gabions and logs of wood, others plowing their way through the debris where the imperturbable Serpentin was seated near the fuse that led down to the mine. Despite the danger, the brave lad did not budge from his post. A lucky accident willed it that none of the besieged was wounded by this first salvo of artillery. Master Barbot, the first one to rise to his feet, cast his eyes upon the enemy's batteries, which were still partly wrapped in the clouds of smoke from the first discharge, perceived the first ranks of the a.s.saulting column sallying from its trenches, and instantly gave the signal:

"Everyone to his post! The enemy is advancing!"

"To arms! Rochelois, to arms!"

Master Barbot's call, was answered by a long roll of drums, ordered by Colonel Plouernel. His strong and penetrating voice rose above the din, and his words were heard:

"Soldiers, to the ramparts! Cannoniers, to your pieces! Fire, all along the line!"

"May G.o.d guard you, mother, sister, Cornelia!" said Antonicq.

"May G.o.d guard you, my wife!" said Louis Rennepont.

"So long, comrade Barbot!" cried the Franc-Taupin, pulling a tinder box from his pocket and sliding down the slope of the breach to rejoin Serpentin. "I shall get myself ready to make the limbs of those St.

Bartholomew lambkins scamper through the air."

"And you, my brave girls, to the censer!" cried Master Barbot to the Rochelois women. "Replace the caldron over the fire, and, when you hear me give the order: 'Serve it hot!' turn it and empty it over the heads of the a.s.sailants. You others, hold your levers ready near those stones and hogsheads of sand. When you hear me say: 'Roll!' push hard and let it all come down upon them."

Suddenly, fresh but more distant and redoubling detonations of artillery in the direction of the Congues Gate announced the enemy's intention of making a diversion by attempting two simultaneous attacks upon the city.

The pastor arrived at that moment upon the ramparts at the head of his troop of women whom the Bombarde and her companions had joined. Some reinforced the women charged with rolling the stones upon the a.s.sailants; others organized themselves to transport the wounded; finally a third set, armed with cutla.s.ses, pikes and axes, made ready to resist the a.s.sailants at close quarters. At the head of these the Bombarde brandished a harpoon.

His best marksmen had been placed by Colonel Plouernel in the underground casemates, thereby forming, on the other side of the circ.u.mvallation, a second line of defense, the loop-holes of which, bearing a strong resemblance to the airholes of a cavern, allowed a murderous fire to be directed upon the enemy. Finally, the companies of arquebusiers were ma.s.sed upon the breach, which was defended by heaped-up beams and gabions that the Rochelois women a.s.sisted in bringing together. A solemn silence reigned among the besieged during the short interval of time that the royalists occupied in rushing through the distance that separated them from the outer edge of our moat. All of us felt that the fate of La Roch.e.l.le depended upon the issue of the a.s.sault.

Old Marshal Montluc was in chief command of the Catholics. Monsieur Du Guast, at the head of six battalions of veteran Swiss troops, led the column, with Marshal Montluc in the center, and in the rear Colonel Strozzi, one of the best officers of the Catholic army. His task was to reinforce and sustain the attack in case the first companies wavered, or were repulsed. These troops advanced in good order, drums beating, trumpets blaring, colors flying, and captained by the flower of the n.o.bility--the Dukes of Guise and Aumale, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Angouleme, Henry of Bearn, who was now the King's brother-in-law, and Henry of Conde. The two renegates now were in arms against our cause. Finally, there were also Mayenne, Biron, Cosseins, D'O, Chateau-Vieux, and innumerable other n.o.ble captains, all crowding near the King's brother, the Duke of Anjou, who marched in the center at the side of Marshal Montluc. The moment that the front ranks of the vanguard reached the thither side of the fosse, Alderman Gargouillaud considered the enemy to be within reach of his cannoniers, and gave the order for a plunging and ricocheting fire.

The effect of the salvo was deadly. The thunder-struck vanguard wavered and recoiled. The Rochelois gained time to reload their pieces. A second discharge, fully as deadly as the first, mowed down as many as before, and increased the indecision of the a.s.sailants. Old Marshal Montluc, Biron and Cosseins revived the shaken courage of their troops, held them, and forced them back. The dash was made. Leaving the dead and wounded behind, the column crossed the moat; it answered with its arquebuses those of the besieged as it pushed up the slope of the breach, receiving the cross fire from the casemates upon both its flanks, while, from the companies ranged upon the ramparts, its front was met with a hailstorm of bullets. Despite severe losses, the royalists steadily climbed up the slope of the breach. The Franc-Taupin and his aide, who until that instant lay flat upon their faces behind a heap of debris, suddenly rose and ran towards the circ.u.mvallation as fast as their legs could carry them. They had fired the fuse. Hardly were they at a safe distance, when the mine took fire under the feet of the enemy. A frightful explosion threw up a spout of earth, dust and rocks, interspersed with jets of fire, fulgent like lightning through thick clouds of smoke. The smoke slowly dissipated. The slope of the breach reappeared to view. It was torn up and cut through by a deep and wide cleft, the sides of which were strewn with the dismembered bodies of the dead and dying. The soldiers of the vanguard who escaped the disaster were seized with terror, turned upon their heels, rushed back upon their center, trampled it down, threw it into a panic, and spread consternation, crying that the pa.s.sage of the breach was mined under the feet of the besiegers. The ranks were broken; confusion reigned, the rout commenced. The Rochelois cannoniers now worked their pieces in quick succession, and plowed wide gaps into the compact ma.s.s of the fleeing invaders, while the Franc-Taupin, standing beside one of the embrasures and calmly crossing his hands behind his back, remarked to Master Barbot:

"Well, comrade, there they are--heads, arms, trunks, legs. They have danced the saraband to the tune of my mine. I have given a ball to the Catholics, to the defenders of the throne and the altar!"

"Ha! Ha!" replied the boilermaker. "The St. Bartholomew lambkins are going back faster than they came. Should they come back again I shall dish up to them my steaming basin in order to comfort the lacerated feelings of those cut-throats whom the Pope has blessed."

The royalist soldiers could not be rallied by their officers until they were beyond the reach of our guns. They were then re-formed into a new column. The most daring of their captains placed themselves resolutely at their head in order to lead them back to the a.s.sault. Preceding this phalanx of intrepid men by several paces, a Cordelier monk, holding a crucifix in one hand and a cutla.s.s in the other, rushed forward to be the first to storm the breach, shouting in a piercing voice the ominous slogan of St. Bartholomew's night: "G.o.d and the King!" The monk's example and the enthusiasm of the captains carried the a.s.sailants away.

They forgot their recent panic, and turned about face to renew the struggle, shouting in chorus "G.o.d and the King!" In vain did the fire of the besieged make havoc among them. They closed ranks; they rushed forward at the double quick; they ran up the slope of the breach; they even pa.s.sed beyond the chasm produced by the late mine explosion. At that moment Master Barbot called out to the Rochelois women in charge of the censer: "Quick! Quick! my daughters! Pour it down hot upon the Catholic vermin! Anoint the devout papists with our holy and consecrated oil!"

And immediately turning to the other set of women charged with rolling stones down upon the enemy's heads, "To work, my brave women!" shouted the boilermaker. "Crush the infamous pack to dust! Exterminate the brood of Satan!"

Instantly a flood of incandescent oil, bitumen and sulphur poured down like a wide sheet of flame upon the front ranks of the besiegers. They recoiled, trampled down the ranks behind them, and emitted hideous cries of anguish. Every drop of the molten liquid bored a hole through the flesh to the bone. At the same moment enormous blocks of stone and ma.s.ses of sand rolled, rapid and irresistible, down the slope of the breach, overthrowing, breaking, crushing, smashing whatever stood in their way. Joined to this murderous defense was the frightfully effective fire of our arquebusiers, who shot unerringly, at close range, themselves safe, upon a foe in disorder. And yet, however decimated and broken, the royalists stuck to the a.s.sault until they finally reached the circ.u.mvallation. The exchange of arquebus shots then ceased and a furious hand-to-hand struggle ensued with swords, cutla.s.ses and pikes.

No quarter was given. The conflict was pitiless. The Rochelois women, among them Cornelia, armed with the iron rod of the censer, and the Bombarde, brandishing her harpoon, vied with the men in deeds of daring.

These Rochelois women were everywhere among the male combatants, and cut a wide swath with their weapons, wielded by their white yet nervy arms, after the fashion of the Gallic women who made a front to the legions of Caesar. Twice did Colonel Plouernel, Captain Normand, Alderman Gargouillaud, Master Barbot, Antonicq Lebrenn, Louis Rennepont and their fellow defenders drive the Catholics back beyond the breach; twice did the Catholics, superior in numbers, drive the Rochelois back to the terrace of the rampart. Thus did the battle fluctuate, when Mayor Morrisson came to the aid of the Protestants with a fresh troop of citizens. The timely reinforcement changed the face of the struggle. For a third time rolled back beyond the breach, the a.s.sailants were precipitated into the pits or whipped down the slope. Their rout then became complete, wild, disordered. Our arquebusiers, whose fire had stopped during the hand-to-hand conflict, now took aim again, and decimated the fleeing, while our artillery mowed them down. This time the royalist rout was complete--final. Those of them who escaped the carnage, made haste to place themselves behind the shelter of their own lines.

Victory to the Rochelois! Oh, sons of Joel, victory! Long live the Commune!

CHAPTER XI.

CAPTURE OF CORNELIA.

The victory of the Rochelois was a b.l.o.o.d.y one, and dearly did we pay for it. We numbered over eleven hundred of our people killed or disabled, men and women. Cornelia Mirant received a wound upon the neck; the Bombarde perished in the breach. Marcienne, Odelin's widow, was struck by a bullet and killed near the rampart as she was bringing aid to a wounded soldier; Antonicq's arm was run through by a pike; Colonel Plouernel was carried to his house in a nearly dying condition with two arquebus shots in his chest. Louis Rennepont, his wife Theresa, Master Barbot, the Franc-Taupin and Serpentin, his a.s.sistant in mining, came safe and sound out of the engagement. The Rochelois gathered in the dead and wounded. The Lebrenn family carried to their house the corpse of Odelin's widow. A sad funeral march! But, alas, in these distressful times the exigencies of the public weal have precedence over the holiest of sorrows. One enjoys leisure to weep over his dead only after having avenged them. The triumph of a day does not remove the apprehensions for the morrow. The royalist a.s.sault, so valiantly repelled by the people of La Roch.e.l.le, might be renewed the very next day, due to the large reserve forces of the Catholic army, only a small portion of which took part in the attack upon the Bastion of the Evangelium. The City Council urged all the remaining able-bodied citizens to proceed without delay to repair the breach, seeing that the moon, then at her full, would light them at their work during the whole night. Fresh defenses were to be immediately raised upon the side of the a.s.saulted bastion. Then, also, famine was staring the city in the face. Precautions were needed against that emergency. Captain Mirant's ships, which were to revictual the city and replenish its magazines of war, still failed to be descried at sea, notwithstanding a strong wind rose from the southwest towards sunset.

The last bags of beans were distributed among the combatants, whose exhaustion demanded immediate attention after the day's conflict. The supply barely sufficed to allay the pangs of hunger. Consequently, in order to insure food for the next day, the women and children were summoned by the aldermen to be at the Two Mills Gate by one o'clock in the morning, the hour of low tide, and favorable for the digging of clams. The gathering of these mollusks offered a precious resource to the besieged, but it was as perilous as battle itself. The Bayhead redoubt, raised by the royalists at the extremity of the tongue of land that ran deep into the offing, could sweep with its cannon the beach on which the clams were to be dug. Towards one in the morning the City Hall bell rang the summons. Upon hearing the agreed-upon signal, the Rochelois women of all conditions issued forth with those of their children who were considered strong enough to join the expedition. Each was equipped with a basket. They met at the Two Mills Gate where they found the wife and two daughters of Morrisson the Mayor. They set the example of public spirit. Accordingly, while the male population of La Roch.e.l.le was busily engaged in repairing the breach, the women and children sallied forth from the city in search of provisions for all.

Although smarting from her wound, and despite the protests of Antonicq, Cornelia Mirant determined to share with Theresa Rennepont the risks of the nocturnal expedition after clams. She joined the troop of women and children.

About four or five hundred Rochelois women issued forth from the Two Mills Gate, situated near the Lantern Tower, in search of clams to feed the population. They were soon upon the beach. Bounded on the right by a ledge of rocks, the beach extended to the left as far as the roadstead in front of the inner port of La Roch.e.l.le, a roadstead narrowed towards its entrance by two tongues of land, each of which was armed with a hostile redoubt. The Bayhead redoubt could at once cover with its fire the narrow entrance of the bay, and sweep the full length and breadth of the beach upon which the Rochelois women now scattered and were actively engaged in picking up at the foot of the rocks, aided by the light of the moon, the mollusks that they came in search of. At the start the Bayhead redoubt gave them no trouble, although the enemy's attention must undoubtedly have been attracted by the large number of white head-covers and scarlet skirts, the time-honored costume of the Rochelois women. Already the baskets were handsomely filling with clams--the "celestial manna" as Mayor Morrisson called them--when suddenly a bright flash of light threw its reflection upon the small puddles of water on the beach, a detonation was heard, and a light cloud of smoke rose above the redoubt. A shiver ran over the clam-digging Rochelois women, and profound silence took the place of their previous chatter.

"The royalists have seen us!" said Theresa Rennepont to Cornelia. "They have begun firing upon us."

"No!" cried Cornelia with mixed joy and alarm as she looked in the direction of the battery. "The enemy is firing upon my father's brigantines! There they are! There they are, at last! G.o.d be praised! If they enter port, La Roch.e.l.le is saved from famine! Do you see them, Theresa? Do you see, yonder, their white sails glistening in the moonlight? The ships are drawing near. They come laden with victory to us!"

And the young maid, moved with a joy that overcame her alarm, raised her beautiful face to heaven, and in a voice quivering with enthusiasm exclaimed: "Oh, Lord! Guard my father's life! Grant victory to the sacred cause of freedom!"