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Updated: June 23, 2025
Outside each one of them was a kind of fence of pointed beams after the manner of a chevaux-de-frise, while outside the ditch and close to the bridge stood a barrier, by the side of which was a guard-house. Tho it was not till 1598 that all the main gates were fitted with drawbridges, the wooden bridges that served before that could doubtless easily be destroyed in cases of emergency.
Isle-aux-Noix, planted in mid-channel of the Richelieu soon after it issues from Lake Champlain, had been diligently fortified since the spring. On each side of it was an arm of the river, closed against an enemy with chevaux-de-frise. To attack it in front in the face of its formidable artillery would be a hazardous attempt, and the task of reducing it was likely to be a long one.
And falling into step and carrying their muskets at the trail, the two lads ran forward, their steps drowned for the moment by the heavy firing going on away beyond the entrance; and they were nearly close up to the little Spanish party before their advance was observed, and then one of the Spaniards shouted a command which resulted in his fellows of the King's bodyguard of friends turning suddenly upon them to form a chevaux-de-frise of sword-blades for the protection of their Sovereign.
Here they were almost overwhelmed with a hurricane of fiery missiles, and in mounting the breaches they had to face not only hand-grenades, trains of powder, and bursting shells, but a chevaux-de-frise of sabre-blades crowning the summit. None of these attacks was successful; but another division under Picton scaled the castle, and a brigade under Walker effected an entrance elsewhere.
At the principal gate two guns were put in position, with a chevaux-de-frise on the inside; and a little behind, but bearing on the same point, were two others. Farther in were placed four more pieces, commanding two cross passages. A train was laid to the powder-magazine, ready to be fired at a given signal. Arms were put in the hands of the natives in the establishment, which they took sulkily.
Conduct so absurd, coupled with some personal defects, and a character so petulantly vainglorious, exposed the "Resolute" to the bitter sarcasm of contemporary writers. Accordingly we find him through life encompassed by a host of tormentors, and presenting his chevaux-de-frise of quills against them at all and every point.
He darted forward down the hill, springing up the opposite declivity like a hunted hare, at the same time keeping his body almost bent to the ground; and before he was perceived, he was close to the chevaux-de-frise. In vain, however, he endeavoured to find his way through it.
He then began building Fonthill Abbey, shrouding his proceedings in the greatest mystery and surrounding his estate with a wall twelve feet high and seven miles long, guarded by chevaux-de-frise to keep out intruders. The building of the abbey was to him a romance pursued with wild enthusiasm.
Of course, I congratulated Hazen most heartily on his brilliant success, and praised its execution very highly, as it deserved, and he explained to me more in detail the exact results. The fort was an inclosed work, and its land-front was in the nature of a bastion and curtains, with good parapet, ditch, fraise, and chevaux-de-frise, made out of the large branches of live-oaks.
His feet were bunion-distorted and lumpy in his great coarse shoes; coarse black hair grew down upon his broad, thick-jointed hands; a thicket of eyebrows presented, like a chevaux-de-frise, bristling when he drew them down in his peering squint. Sarah Newbolt rose to meet him, tall in the vigor of her pioneer stock.
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