They penetrated to the rampart wall of houses and marched past them to the level ground, intending to rush the city and pen the Muslim army within its narrow streets, there to be crushed at will by the sheer mass of its foes.

"We are the fallen, who by ramparts gory, Awaiting death, heard the far shouts begin,

[Illustration: Attack on Fort St. Philip218] 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.

The half-ruined castle of Corbus fights with the winter, like a strong man with his enemies; the gargoyles on its towers bark at the winds, the graven monsters on the ramparts snarl and snort, the sculptured lions claw and bite the wind and rain.