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The supporting platoon on the right was equally divided between Trench Dominique and Oxford Street; that on the left was located in the forward end of Jena. Company Headquarters were in Vauban, and Captain Attride disposed of a reserve platoon of C Company in Vercingetorix.
I was sitting on the pier of the small port of Obernon, near the village of Salis, looking at Antibes, bathed in the setting sun. I had never before seen anything so wonderful and so beautiful. The small town, enclosed by its massive ramparts, built by Monsieur de Vauban, extended into the open sea, in the middle of the immense Gulf of Nice.
Then Christmas Day dawned, and there was Vicksburg lifted two hundred feet above the fever swamps, her court-house shining in the morning sun. Vicksburg, the well-nigh impregnable key to America's highway. When old Vick made his plantation on the Walnut Hills, he chose a site for a fortress of the future Confederacy that Vauban would have delighted in.
Before giving up Franche-Comte, the king issued orders for demolishing the fortifications of Dole and Gray; he at the same time commissioned Vauban to fortify Ath, Lille, and Tournay. The Triple Alliance was triumphant, the Hollanders at the head.
Vauban, were not altogether without merit, considered in reference to their use in case of a surprise. The house formed three sides of a parallelogram, the open portion of the court in the centre, facing the cliff.
Vauban wished to abolish all imposts, and to substitute for them two taxes, one upon the land, the other upon trade and industry. His book, in which he put forth these ideas, was full of information and figures, all arranged with the utmost clearness, simplicity, and exactitude. But it had a grand fault.
Only, when we look back into the past we see that France in former days never wanted for the great talents necessary to the State; but now she prefers to hatch out talent geometrically, after the theory of Monge. Did Vauban ever go to any other Ecole than that great school we call vocation? Who was Riquet's tutor?
The Citadel of Vauban , called ironically "la belle inutile," may be classed as a worthless, if not wholly unpicturesque, ruin, though ranking, when built, as among the most wonderful fortifications of the times. The wave of Renaissance which swept northward has left its ineradicable marks here.
The fortress occupied an area of over one hundred acres, and was planned on the best system of Vauban and other great masters of engineering skill, who intended it should be, as indeed it was, despite some faulty details of construction, the most complete example of a strongly fortified city in America.
After a siege hard pressed, that fortress, esteemed the strongest in Europe, splendidly fortified by Vauban, surrendered to the allies on August 26, 1695. The Treaty of Ryswick The war was ended by the signing of the treaty of Ryswick by the ambassadors of France, England, Spain, and the United Provinces on September 10, 1697. King William was received in London with great popular rejoicing.
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