French have set their teeth, and now everyone almost believes
that nothing--not even mines, shells, myriads of bullets, and foolish
order after order from headquarters ordering men to be sent elsewhere
--will beat them back. And yet they cannot keep on this way for ever.
All round them the connecting posts and blockhouses are losing more
and more men, and matters are reaching a dangerous point.

It is now nearly four weeks since the first bullet flicked out the
brains of the first French sailor ten minutes after the opening of
hostilities at barricades far away down Customs Street, and in these
twenty-five days which have elapsed the French positions have been
beaten into such shapeless masses that they are quite past
recognition. I had not been there for a week, and was shocked when I
saw how little remains. The Chinese have, foot by foot, gained more
than half of the Legation, and all that is practically left to the
defenders is their main-gate blockhouse, a long barricaded trench and
the remains of a few houses. These they have sworn to retain until
they are too feeble to hold. Then, and then only, will they retreat
into the next line behind them, the fortified Hotel de Pekin, which
has already four hundred shell holes in it.

Yesterday's losses at the French lines were five men wounded, four
blown up by a mine, of whom two never have been seen again, and two
men killed outright by rifle-fire. Then the last houses were set fire
to by Chinese soldiers, who, able to push forward in the excitement
and confusion of the mine explosions, attempted to seize and hold
these strategic points, and were only driven out by repeated
counter-attacks. Such events show that for some occult reason the
Chinese commands are trying to carry the French lines by every
possible device.... It has been like this for a week now.

For, from the 7th of July, the Chinese commands having prepared the
ground for their attacks by a heavy cannonade lasting for sixty hours,
which riddled everything above the ground level with gaping holes,
started pushing forward through the breaches, and setting fire, by
means of torches attached to long bamboo poles, to everything which
would burn. No living men, no matter how brave, can hold a glowing
mass of ruins and ashes, and the Chinese were showing devilish
cunning. Isolated combats took place along the whole French line--in a
vain effort to drive off the incendiaries, little sorties of two or
three men f