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The young man took a bedroom candle from a table at the stairfoot, lit it, and motioned the General to precede him. He, altogether military in gait, with his shoulders squared to the utmost, marched upstairs as if he were heading an assault by escalade. Polson followed, drooping. 'This is your room, sir, the young man said when they came to the end of the corridor on which they had entered.
There were, indeed, certain recognized principles derived from treatises compiled by Sung and 'Ng,* two Chinese generals of the third century A.D. These laid down that troops for offensive operations in the field must be twice as numerous as the enemy; those for investing a fortress should be to the garrison as ten to one, and those for escalade as five to one.
I have not, it seems, exhausted the limit of their climbing-instinct even with a nine- foot pole, suitably furnished with branches to facilitate the escalade. Those who have eagerly reached the very top wave their legs, fumble in space as though for yet higher stalks. It behoves us to begin again and under better conditions.
The imperialists were for the moment dismayed, and the Taepings correspondingly encouraged. General Staveley's communications were threatened, and he had to abandon his intended plan and retrace his steps to Shanghai. Chung Wang then laid regular siege to Sunkiang, where Ward was in person, and he very nearly succeeded in carrying the place by escalade.
The method used in sieges was to open trenches at a certain distance from the walls, and to advance along them under cover of hurdles to the ditch, and fill it up with earth and fascines. Escalade might then be attempted; or movable towers, armed with rams or balistae, might be brought up close to the walls, and the defences battered till a breach was effected.
Fragonard's famous "Escalade," or "Rendezvous," the first of the series of five proposed panels, depicted the passion of Louis XV for du Barry. The shepherdess had the form and features of that none too scrupulous feminine beauty, and the "berger gallant" was manifestly a portrait of the king. Perhaps these decorations at Louveciennes were elaborations of these smaller canvases.
A desperate effort was made to escalade the walls between St. Jacques and St. Germain. It was foiled, not by the soldiers nor the citizens, but by the sleepless Jesuits, who, as often before during this memorable siege, had kept guard on the ramparts, and who now gave the alarm.
The outposts driven in, and a close inspection made, the works were found stronger than had been represented, and its regular reduction was out of the question without the battering train which Keane had allowed himself to be persuaded into leaving behind. A wall some 70 feet high and a wet ditch in its front made mining and escalade alike impracticable.
I look back with delight on many an escalade of garden walls; many a ramble among lilacs full of piping birds; many an exploration in obscure quarters that were neither town nor country; and I think that both for my companions and myself, there was a special interest, a point of romance, and a sentiment as of foreign travel, when we hit in our excursions on the butt-end of some former hamlet, and found a few rustic cottages embedded among streets and squares.
"Ah, Monsieur Hypocrite, I understand how you study theology." The three blows were scarcely struck, when the inside blind was opened and a light appeared through the panes of the outside shutter. "Ah, ah!" said the listener, "not through doors, but through windows! Ah, this visit was expected. We shall see the windows open, and the lady enter by escalade. Very pretty!"
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