ion; they showed a sad disrespect for the wisdom of the
ancients, deranged the calculations which so much learning and patient
thought had hallowed, disturbed the minds of white-haired veterans, took
sieges out of the grasp of science, and plunged them back into the field
of wild conjecture.

Our generals then sat down at fourteen hundred yards' distance, and
planned the trenches artistically, and directed them to be cut at
artful angles, and so creep nearer and nearer the devoted town. Then the
Prussians, whose hearts had been in their shoes at first sight of the
French shakos, plucked up, and turned not the garrison only but the
population of the town into engineers and masons. Their fortifications
grew almost as fast as the French trenches.

The first day of the siege, a young but distinguished brigadier in the
French army rode to the quarters of General Raimbaut, who commanded
his division, and was his personal friend, and respectfully but firmly
entreated the general to represent to the commander-in-chief the
propriety of assaulting that new bastion before it should become
dangerous. "My brigade shall carry it in fifteen minutes, general," said
he.

"What! cross all that open under fire? One-half your brigade would never
reach the bastion."

"But the other half would take it."

"That is not so certain."

General Raimbaut refused to forward the young colonel's proposal to
headquarters. "I will not subject you to TWO refusals in one matter,"
said he, kindly.

The young colonel lingered. He said, respectfully, "One question,
general, when that bastion cuts its teeth will it be any easier to take
than now?"

"Certainly; it will always be easier to take it from the sap than to
cross the open under fire to it, and take it. Come, colonel, to your
trenches; and if your friend should cut its teeth, you shall have a
battery in your attack that will set its teeth on edge. Ha! ha!"

The young colonel did not echo his chief's humor; he saluted gravely,
and returned to the trenches.

The next morning three fresh tiers of embrasures grinned one above
another at the besiegers. The besieged had been up all night, and not
idle. In half these apertures black muzzles showed themselves.

The bastion had cut its front teeth.

Thirteenth day of the siege.

The trenches were within four hundred yards of the enemy's guns, and
it was hot work in them. The enemy had three tiers of guns in the round
bastion, and on the top t