Old military tradition in all the armies of Europe held that a garrison which refused to surrender when the breaches had become practicable was at the mercy of the conqueror for life and limb, and that a town resisting to extremity was the natural booty of the stormers. In the eighteenth century there were countless instances of a fortress, defended with courage up to the moment when an assault was possible, surrendering on the express plea that the lives of the garrison were forfeit if it held out, when resistance could no longer be successful. The attacking party held that all the lives which it lost after the place had become untenable were lost unnecessarily, because of the unreasonable obstinacy of the besieged: the latter therefore could expect no quarter. This was not an unnatural view when the circumstances are considered. The defender of a wall or a breach has an immense advantage over the stormer, till the moment when the latter has succeeded in closing, and in bringing his superior numbers to bear. In a curious hortatory address which Phillipon published to his garrison[271], the passage occurs, ‘realize thoroughly that a man mounting up a ladder cannot use his weapon unless he is left unmolested: the head comes up above the parapet unprotected, and a wary soldier can destroy in succession as many enemies as appear at the ladder-top.’ This is perfectly true: but Phillipon naturally avoided stating the logical conclusion, viz. that when the stormers finally succeed in crowning the ramparts, they will be particularly ill-disposed towards the garrison who have, till the last moment, been braining their comrades or shooting them through the head at small risk to themselves. When the assailant, after seeing several of his predecessors on the ladder deliberately butchered by a man under cover, gets by some special piece of luck on a level with his adversary, it will be useless for the latter to demand quarter. If it is a question of showing mercy, why did not the other side begin? _Que messieurs les assassins commencent_, as the French humorist remarked to the humanitarian, who protested against capital punishment for murderers. There is a grim story of a party of Tuscan soldiers of the 113th Line, who were pinned into a ravelin on the flank of the lesser breach at Rodrigo, and after firing to the last minute upon the flank of the Light Division, threw down their arms, when they saw themselves cut off, calling out that they were ‘_poveros Italianos_’--’So you’re not French but _Italians_ are you--then here’s a shot for you,’ was the natural answer[272]:--reflections as to the absence of any national enmity towards the victors should have occurred to the vanquished before, and not after, the breach was carried. The same thing happened at the Castle of Badajoz to the companies, mainly Hessians, who so long held down the stormers of the 3rd Division. If the defenders of the