_THE CITÉ OF LA ROCHE-PONT IS FORTIFIED BY ERRARD DE BAR-LE-DUC,
ENGINEER TO THE MOST CHRISTIAN KING OF FRANCE AND OF NAVARRE._
In 1606, Henry IV. had succeeded in subjugating the religious and feudal
factions that had imperilled France for more than thirty years. He
cherished great designs which his skilful policy, his patriotic soul,
his military talents and the advantageous alliances he was able to form,
promised to render successful. But Henry IV. left nothing to chance, and
would not embark in any enterprise after his accession to the throne,
till he had made every preparation to insure its success.
When he saw the moment arriving at which he could effectually intervene
in the affairs of Germany--a part of which had its eyes directed to
France, and was only waiting for a signal from the Louvre to escape from
the incessant rivalries of the princes and from religious
contentions--he took measures not only to facilitate a successful
intervention abroad, but to strengthen his frontiers and establish
depôts and centres for provisioning his troops. Assured of the good-will
of the Swiss and tranquil as regarded Italy--thanks to the alliances he
had formed in that Peninsula--and wishing to act at once in the east,
and on the Pyrenean side, he turned his attention to the defences of
Roussillon and of the line which unites Burgundy with Champagne.
Henry IV. had been engaged in partisan warfare; but then he had only his
own life at stake. As a sovereign he thought it his duty not to run
risks; and before launching into the great enterprises he had in view,
and which might change the face of Europe, he wished to put fortune on
his side as far as possible. For more than six years, in concert with
Sully, he had lost not a day or an hour in preparing for France, which
had been a prey to civil war and invasion at the end of the sixteenth
century, a future of the noblest order, and which might have secured to
it the most honourable destiny, if the hand of an assassin had not in a
single day destroyed hopes founded in a wise policy and the most
thoughtful foresight.
This prince knew by experience that in war a check is always possible,
even when fortune is, or seems to be, entirely on our side, and that the
talent of a general consists in his ability to discover new resources
after a reverse. Success in arms is secure in proportion to the
foresight exercised in preventing a first reverse from becoming a
disaster. Henry IV. therefore set about preparing a good line of retreat
and supply in the rear of the army, which he was intending to lead in
person towards the east. He put in a state of defence the towns and
important strategic points from Châlons-sur-Saône, passing through
Beaune, Dijon, Langres, along the course of the Haute-Marne, and from
Langres to Chaumont, Saint-Dizier, Châlons, Reims, Laon, Péronne, and
Amiens. Verdun and Metz had been visited by him, with a view to
examining their defences. At Metz he had ordered works of considerable
importance. The town of La Roche-Pont was comprised in that portion of
this line of defence which lay between Dijon and Langres. The engineer
Errard de Bar-le-Duc had been entrusted with these operations, beginning
with Châlons-sur-Saône. He had, we may observe, merited the confidence
reposed in him by the king, for he had given proofs of considerable
ability and ingenuity.
Errard de Bar-le-Duc made use of the ancient walls, considering them
suitable for defence at close quarters; but he constructed works outside
which would command the country, and force the besieger to commence his
operations at a distance of one thousand or one thousand two hundred
yards. The system of boulevards was still maintained, but these, instead
of presenting only an isolated obstacle, defended each other by crossing
their fire, and were, in fact, true bastions.
[Illustration: FIG. 59.--THE BASTIONS OF ERRARD DE BAR-LE-DUC.]
The three great round towers on the north of the _cité_ of La Roche-Pont
were then much dilapidated. Errard had them terraced, and then
surrounded them with earthworks with walled escarpments. Towards the
plateau fronting the north he had a great tenaille constructed with a
double ditch and ravelin. Fig. 59 gives the plan of the _cité_ after the
operations planned by Errard. Besides the works just mentioned,
indicated at A, B, C and D, the king's engineer raised the bastions, E,
F, G, H, and I, which crossed their fires, and whose orillons masked
small pieces designed to flank the old ramparts.
Most of the old towers were lowered and terraced to receive cannon. The
ancient castle, of which little more than the donjon and some
outbuildings remained, was surrounded by a bastioned enclosure, with a
tenaille on the town side.
The lower town, towards the west, though reduced to narrow dimensions,
continued nearly in the condition already described. As to the upper
town, after the conflagration of the last siege, it had been rebuilt in
a very indifferent style. Under Francis I., the abbey had been
secularised, and its ancient church was served by a Chapter. The old
stone bridge near the outflow of the rivulet still existed, and at O was
a second wooden bridge connecting the two shores. The bridge, P, had
fallen into ruins and had not been rebuilt.
[Illustration: FIG. 60.]
From the bastion, B, to the river, and from the bastion, D, to the pool,
Errard built two fronts, K and L, _à crémaillères_,[50] to command the
slopes of the plateau on the right and left, and to hinder an assailant
from occupying a position on the east and west flanks of the _cité_.
For the time, these works appeared strong, and the axiom in
fortifications, "What offers itself as a defence ought to be defended,"
was already pretty generally adhered to. Fig. 60 gives the northern work
which was destined to sweep the plateau, and to render difficult the
approach to the cité on this its very accessible side. This work
consisted of a ravelin, A, whose height above the level of the plateau
was not more than six feet; next of a first tenaille, B, with orillons,
eighteen feet above the plateau, and a second tenaille, C, three feet
above the level of the tenaille, B. Two bastions, D and F, enveloped the
two great towers, G and H, which were terraced. The platforms of the
latter rose three feet above the platforms of the bastions. The gate, I,
of the fourteenth century, had been preserved and repaired, and the
curtains, K, terraced to receive cannon.
[Illustration: FIG. 61.]
The road passed over the right face of the ravelin, and thence at right
angles to the centre of the tenailles. A wide fosse, E, protected the
exterior works, and a second fosse, L, the curtain of the second
tenaille.
Fig. 61 gives a sketch in perspective of the bastion, F.[51] No use,
however, was made of these defences till about thirty years after their
construction.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 50: In plan not straight, but broken by a series of returns
each in advance of the other.]
[Footnote 51: Of the general plan, Fig. 59.]