full of darkness and night, while Cimourdain's fatal brow glowed with the light of morning.
In the meantime, the siege of la Tourgue had a respite.
Thanks to the intervention of Gauvain, as we have just seen, a sort of twenty-four hours' truce had been agreed upon.
L'Imânus had indeed been well posted, and in consequence of Cimourdain's requisition Gauvain now had under his command four thousand five hundred men, as many National Guards as troops of the line, and with these he was surrounding Lantenac in la Tourgue; and he had been able to point twelve pieces of cannon at the fortress, a masked battery of six pieces on the edge of the forest toward the tower, and an open battery of six pieces on the plateau toward the bridge. He had been able to spring the mine and make a breach at the foot of the tower.
So, at the expiration of the twenty-four hours' truce, the struggle was going to begin under the following conditions,—
There were four thousand five hundred men on the plateau and in the forest.
In the tower, nineteen.
The names of these nineteen besieged men may be found by history among the lists of outlaws. Possibly, we shall come across them.
Cimourdain would have liked to have Gauvain made adjutant-general to command these four thousand five hundred men, who made almost an army. But Gauvain had refused, saying, "When Lantenac has been taken we will see. I have not yet done anything to deserve it."
Great commands with humble rank were, moreover, customary among the Republicans. Later on, Bonaparte was both colonel of artillery and general-in-chief of the army of Italy.
The Tour-Gauvain had a strange fate; it was attacked by a Gauvain, and it was a Gauvain who defended it. This caused some restraint in the attack, but not in the defence, for Monsieur de Lantenac was one of those men who have no regard for anything, and besides he had lived chiefly at Versailles, and had no superstitious feeling for la Tourgue, which he was hardly acquainted with. He had taken refuge because it was the only place, and that
