back to the castle-but the gates were shut. The commands of the garrison to keep back were followed by threats, and then by stones and arrows; and the outcasts, rejected alike by friend and foe, retired to an equal distance between both, and sat down upon the cliff in their desolation and despair.

The night came down upon them dark, damp and bitterly cold. Another-another-another! A week-a month-a quarter of a year! They burrowed in the interstices of the rock; they devoured the blades of vegetation; they dug up the roots and lichens with their long lean fingers; they hunted the clammy worm into his winter retreat. The lover was glad when his mistress died of want, for he inherited her clothes; the mother held the corpse of her child to her shivering bosom only so long as some warmth remained.

At length the dogs of the garrison were turned out, not in mercy to the outcasts, but to save provisions. What a joy! What a providence! Hark to the halloo of the famished hunters! Some throw themselves on their prey, and attempt to strangle them by main force. Miscalculating their strength, and received with howl for howl, they can only clasp the victim with a death-grip; and, locked in the fatal embrace, tearing and torn, they roll over the rock, till dog and man are dashed down the precipice together.

To these succeeded extremities of suffering even more appalling, and attended by circumstances too revolting for detail on the present occasion, all of which appear to have taken place within sight of both armies. When half the number of the outcasts had died of cold and hunger, Philippe Auguste had the credit of giving the pleasanter death of repletion to the remainder. He commanded them

to be fed; and, feeding with the frantic eagerness of starvation, most of them died of the meal.

When the blockade had continued seven months, Philippe determined to combine with this mode of siege more active operations. With great labour and loss of men, he constructed, on the tongue of land which we have described as the only avenue to the fortress, a covered way, through which he conveyed, to the brink of the ditch, the necessary materials for constructing a "beffroi." This was a lofty tower, constructed, in several stages, of rough wood, and moving upon wheels. It was covered over with damp leather, to prevent fire; and when drawn near the walls, and manned with crossbow-men, it created a formidable diversion in favour of the miners, or others, below. In the present case it was so well served with crossbows, that the besieged could hardly hold their footing for an instant on the ramparts; and the engineers beneath were able, with little interruption, to proceed with their grand object of filling up the ditch, that a passage might be made to the walls for the miners.

This was at last so far accomplished, that, with the aid of ladders to descend the counterscarp, and get up the opposite slope to the mason-work of the tower, a sufficient force crossed the ditch, and began to dig, with pickaxe and crowbar, into the foundations of the wall. While thus occupied, stones and arrows fell in a continuous shower from the ramparts, and resounded against the targets with which their heads were covered, in that order which the military art of the day very expressively called the "tortoise." They succeeded, notwithstanding, in making a breach of considerable extent, the roof of which they propped up with posts of wood, as they cut deeper into the interior. They were now able to work, completely sheltered from annoyance;

and the consequence was, that in a brief space of time they had entirely undermined the ramparts. It was time, therefore, to retire; and setting fire hastily to the stanchions, which were now the only support of the wall, they fled across the ditch covered with their bucklers.

A moment of suspense ensued; but as the posts blackened, shrunk, and crackled under the action of the fire, the wall began to totter, and at length fell with a shock like that of an earthquake. The French rushed into the breach with all the impetuosity of their nation, before the cloud of dust and smoke had dissipated; and here they were met, with equal desperation, by a portion of the English, while the rest were occupied in setting fire to the buildings within the enclosure. The whole of the besieged then retreated from the avant-corps into what may be called the main body of the fortress. Thus was the first enclosure lost and

won.

THE FALL OF CHATEAU GAILLARD.

:

THE French and the English now stood looking at one another from their opposite walls. The space between was inconsiderable; but a deep ditch defended the ramparts of the château and Philippe, in spite of all his kingly impatience, must construct anew his covered way, raise painfully the several stages of his beffroi-tower, fill up gradually the chasm which separated him from his enemies, and undermine again, with lever and pickaxe, the obstinate walls. In the present case, his operations would be still more difficult than in the other; for the courtine wall before him, running between its two corner towers, presented a deadly array upon the ramparts, whence his slightest motion could be observed, and where the whole garrison of the fortress might fight at one moment.

In the mean time, a young French knight busied himself in prying about the ditch, and the king had hardly determined on his operations, when the intruder discovered a small window at the bottom of the rampart, a little way above the talus, or slope of the rock on which the wall was raised.

This window was not in the courtine wall against which the operations of the siege were to be directed, but in the side-wall which ran along the precipice, where there was no room for an attack. It gave light to the lower part of those buildings which we have mentioned were constructed by John Sans-Terre; and which contained the chapel and cellars.

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The knight no sooner saw the little window, than his curiosity was excited to know what was contained within. He mentioned the. affair to four of his comrades-wild, thoughtless, harum-scarum, desperadoes; and it was soon known in the French Army that these young fellows were about to take the Château Gaillard by surprise! Some soldiers followed him in this forlorn hope; and stealing along the brink of the ditch to a place so well defended by the precipice that precautions had been thought almost useless, and where in consequence the counterscarp was neither so steep nor so deep as elsewhere-they glided to the bottom. To climb the talus, or slope of the rock on which the fortress was built, was more difficult, but this also they effected; and at length they stood clinging to the cliff, under the little window.

Here, however, they found that they had committed a mistake. They had measured the height of the aperture from the rock rather with their hopes than their eyes; and they now found that it was far beyond arm's length. But our hero was not a man to be daunted by trifling difficulties or great ones; and, getting one of his comrades to stand upright, and hold as firmly to the rock as circumstances permitted, he climbed upon his shoulders, and so entered the window. He then let down a cord to the others, and the whole party speedily found themselves in the cellars of the fortress.

The question was now what further they were to do. The cellars, being meant for securing stores, were of course well locked and barred. Under these circumstances they resolved to make a noise, if they could make nothing else; and, thumping upon the cellar-door with the hilts of their swords, and shouting at the same time all manner of war-cries, they raised so frightful a din, that the English