m. They drove out the besiegers from
the projecting angles of the counterscarp, which they had kept possession
of for eight days. They twice repulsed seven thousand men who attacked
their covered way and an outwork; at the third attack they lost an angle
of the outwork; but remained masters of all the rest.

So many attacks and engagements terribly weakened the garrison. On the
28th of September some assistance was sent to the besieged by the daring
of the Chevalier de Luxembourg. It enabled them to sustain with vigour
the fresh attacks that were directed against them, to repulse the enemy,
and, by a grand sortie, to damage some of their works, and kill many of
their men. But all was in vain. The enemy returned again and again to
the attack. Every attempt to cut off their supplies failed. Finally, on
the 23rd of October, a capitulation was signed. The place had become
untenable; three new breaches had been made on the 20th and 21st; powder
and ammunition were failing; the provisions were almost all eaten up
there was nothing for it but to give in.

Marechal Boufflers obtained all he asked, and retired into the citadel
with all the prisoners of war, after two months of resistance. He
offered discharge to all the soldiers who did not wish to enter the
citadel. But not one of the six thousand he had left to him accepted it.
They were all ready for a new resistance, and when their chief appeared
among them their joy burst out in the most flattering praises of him. It
was on Friday, the 26th of October, that they shut themselves up in the
citadel.

The enemy opened their trenches before the citadel on the 29th of
October. On the 7th of November they made a grand attack, but were
repulsed with considerable loss. But they did not flinch from their
work, and Boufflers began to see that he could not long hold out. By the
commencement of December he had only twenty thousand pounds of powder
left; very little of other munitions, and still less food. In the town
and the citadel they had eaten eight hundred horses. Boufflers, as soon
as the others were reduced to this food, had it served upon his own
table, and ate of it like the rest. The King, learning in what state
these soldiers were, personally sent word to Boufflers to surrender, but
the Marechal, even after he had received this order, delayed many days to
obey it.

At last, in want of the commonest necessaries, and able to protract his
defence no longer,