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I smiled; and we began a discussion on camps and fosses, vallum and praetorium; the Danes, Saxons, and Normans; which, doubtless, we carried on to a most learned length: but at this distance of time, and indeed the very day after, I plead guilty to having forgotten all about it.
"Go and lie down for an hour or two, M. d'Albergotti," said Villars; "to-morrow by three in the morning you shall know whether the enemy's intrenchments are as strong as you suppose." Prince Eugene was coming up by forced marches to relieve Denain, by falling on the rearguard of the French army. It was proposed to Villars to make fascines to fill up the fosses of Denain.
These VALLA, although they are known in the country in which they occur as FOSSES DE TRAJAN, are certainly of earlier date than the Roman occupation, and in fact Roman roads cut across the intrenchments or fosses which have been levelled or covered over to make way for them. Excavations of the large tumuli are not yet sufficiently advanced for us to hazard an opinion about them.
Before long he resolved to attempt the assault. Fort St. Philip towered up proudly on an enormous mass of rock; the French regiments flung themselves into the fosses, setting against the ramparts ladders that were too short; the soldiers mounted upon one another's shoulders, digging their bayonets into the interstices between the stones; the boldest were already at the top of the bastions.
Maur, brought thither in the Norman troubles by fugitive monks from Anjou, and the monastery is better known to history under the name of St. Maur des Fossés. The entrails of our own Henry V. were buried there. Rabelais, before its secularisation, was one of its canons, and Catherine de' Medicis once possessed a château on its site.
Great ditches and fosses cut up the ground. The most important of these was Blemund's Ditch, which divided the parish from that of Bloomsbury. This is supposed to have been an ancient line of fortification. Besides this, a ditch traversed the marshlands above mentioned, another encompassed the croft lying by the north gate of the hospital, and there were several others of less importance.
But the depression in the centre created a salient on either side, and the French could only fight desperate rearguard actions while the line was straightened out; by Wednesday morning they were back on a line running due east from Samogneux. But the German pressure on the centre was renewed and the French were pressed back to Beaumont and the Bois des Fosses.
To this were bidden the Fosses, Aurora's best friends; the Hunts, her next best; Manlio, whom she wished Tom to see as a truly beautiful specimen of Italian; and Landini, because she was curious to know what Tom thought of him. Aurora had not seen the latter since the night of the veglione.
The meeting, in no sense an encounter, occurred close by a thirty-acre meadow, famous over the county; and was remarkable for the punctilious exchange of ceremonial speech, danger being present; as we see powder-magazines protected by their walls and fosses and covered alleys. Notwithstanding which, there was a scintillation of sparks.
It was fairly dark now, and being closely muffled in our mantles there was little chance of our being recognized. Cossein's soldiers were apparently asleep; no lights gleamed anywhere; the Rue des Fossés de St. Germain was empty. On approaching nearer the Louvre, however, we observed a body of citizens, armed, and marching with some sort of military discipline.
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