1See the siege of IsmaÏl.

2Michaud’s “Hist. des Crusades.”

3Gibbon.

4Rollin.

5The quintal was of several kinds: the least weighed 125 lbs., the largest more than 1,200 lbs.

6Scorpions were machines like cross-bows, for the discharge of darts and arrows.

7Rollin.

8Rollin.

9Following Hale and Holinshed, Shakespeare has made Fastolfe a coward, and, it is supposed, borrowed from him the name for his inimitable Falstaff. But the historical Fastolfe vindicated his good name, and was restored to his honours. Dr. Heylin, in his “St. George for England,” says, “without doubt, this Sir John Fastolfe was a valiant and wise captain.”

10All the world knows the famous quatrain composed by Francis I upon this action of the fair Agnes:—

11This circumstance seems to authorize the opinion of those who pretend that La Pucelle was nothing more than a shrewd, clever girl, whom Dunois employed to excite the wavering courage of the king’s followers, and detain the monarch himself. Shakespeare makes Dunois introduce her to the king.

12Memoirs of Sir Sidney Smith.

13This anecdote is evidently the foundation of an amusing scene in Dumas’ “Three Musketeers,” and proves the truth of the proverb, “that truth is even more strange than fiction.”

14A small work composed of two sides, which is raised opposite the salient angles or rentrants of the covered way, at the extremity of its glacis.

15We insert this for an opportunity of comparing the expenses in two ages: Turin, in 1706, and Sebastopol, in 1854–55.

16Holes dug in front of a circumvallation, or other intrenchment, as a trap for cavalry.

17Rendered too wide at the mouth.

18“This excellent manner of defending places is practised thus,” says Grotius in his description of this siege: “when a city which dreads a siege has many soldiers, the fortifications are carried outwards to a distance, to stop the progress of the enemy. By this means those who are shut up have a longer time to defend themselves, and still further, the internal parts of the place remain longer in safety. Thus then the prince of Orange gave orders that, before the boulevards of Bommel, others should be made, and then still others, which should be inclosed with a fosse of water, as well as the preceding ones, so that in the end, all that was capable of defence should be further surrounded by a parapet.”—Annals of Grotius. This, then, is the origin of the multiplication of the exterior works of places of war and of the covered way, to which Grotius gives the name of parapet. Engineers have since made it their study that all fortifications should sustain one another, and might be, at the same time, sustained by the body of the place.

19It had arrived some months before from England; but most of the men had been sick.

20The Royal Military Chronicle.

21Royal Military Chronicle.

22The Belgic Revolution, by Charles White, Esq.