Let us now take a step backward, and direct the attention of our
readers to the events that had taken place at Vayres, with which they
are as yet only imperfectly acquainted.
After several assaults, which were the more terrible in that the
royalist general sacrificed his men recklessly in order to save time,
the outworks were carried; but their brave defenders, after contesting
the ground foot by foot and heaping up the dead and wounded at the foot
of the ramparts, retired by the underground passage, and intrenched
themselves in the main fortification. Now Monsieur de La Meilleraie
did not fail to realize that, if he had lost five or six hundred men
in carrying a wretched earthwork surmounted by a palisade, he was
practically certain to lose six times as many in carrying a fort
surrounded by stout walls, and defended by a man whose strategic skill
and soldierly gallantry he had discovered to his cost.
He had determined therefore to open trenches and lay siege to the place
in due form, when he spied the advance guard of the Duc d'Épernon's
army, which had effected its junction with his own, so that the royal
forces were doubled. This put an entirely different face upon the
affair. It was at once decided to undertake with twenty-four thousand
men what they dared not undertake with twelve thousand, and to make an
assault on the following day.
By the cessation of work upon the trenches, by the new dispositions
which were seen to be in progress, and above all by the appearance of
strong reinforcements, Richon understood that the besiegers proposed
to give him no rest; and apprehending an assault upon the morrow, he
called his men together, in order to make sure of the state of feeling
among them, although he had no reason to doubt their zeal, in view
of the manner in which they had supported him in the defence of the
outworks.
His astonishment knew no bounds, therefore, when he discovered the
change in the attitude of the garrison. His men gazed gloomily and
uneasily at the royal army, and threatening murmurs arose in the ranks.
Richon had no patience with pleasantry in war-time, especially
pleasantry of that sort.
"Who's muttering there?" he demanded, turning toward the spot where the
sounds were most distinct.
"I!" replied one man, bolder than his fellows.
"You?"
"Yes, I."
"Come forward, and answer my questions."
The man left the ranks and approached his chief.
"What do you lack that you dare to complain?" said Richon, folding his
arms and fixing his eyes sternly upon the malcontent.
"What do I lack?"
"Yes, what do you lack? Have you your ration of bread?"
"Yes, commandant."
"Your ration of wine?"
"Yes, commandant."
"Are your quarters unsatisfactory?"
"No."
"Are any arrears due you?"
"No."
"Tell me, then, what you want? What do these murmurs mean?"
"They mean that we are fighting against our king, and that comes hard
to the French soldier."
"So you sigh to be in his Majesty's service?"
"_Dame!_ yes."
"And you wish to join your king?"
"Yes," said the soldier, who was deceived by Richon's calm manner, and
supposed that the affair would end with his simple exclusion from the
garrison.
"Very well," said Richon, seizing the man by his baldric; "but as the
gates are closed, you must take the only road that is left open to you."
"What is that?" queried the terrified soldier.
"This," retorted Richon, lifting him with his herculean arm, and
tossing him over the parapet.
The soldier, with a yell of terror, dropped into the moat, which,
luckily for him, was full of water.
This energetic action was greeted with gloomy silence. Richon believed
that he had crushed the sedition, and turned to his men with the air of
a gambler who risks everything to gain everything.
"Now," said he, "if there are any partisans of the king here, let them
say so, and they will be allowed to go and join him by the same road."