The Burgundians could not undertake a new attack before these works were completed. Baron Guy determined to avail himself of this respite. Behind the left-hand curtain of the bailey gate, he set up the two remaining trebuchets on a wooden platform, and then connected the corner of the chapel and the corner of the building D, belonging to the stables, by a good palisading with a ditch.[24] The trebuchets were mounted within this palisading, forming an interior retrenchment. The timbers of the hoarding were thoroughly wetted and smeared with mud--as far as the enemy's attacks permitted. This precaution was not useless, for the Burgundians soon discharged on these hoardings, with their catapults, darts furnished with tow dipped in pitch and lighted. The besieged, armed with poles to which were fastened pieces of wet blanket, extinguished these missiles without much trouble; for the flame had not the intensity of the Greek fire, and did not cling to the wood. In fact the tow would sometimes be extinguished in its passage. In twelve hours the trebuchets of the besieged were mounted, and began to hurl stones of sixty and a hundred pounds weight on the barbican occupied by the enemy, and even beyond, which annoyed them excessively; for not seeing the engines, they were unable to aim in return--except by guess--with the mangonels they had set up on the terraces; and all the projectiles passed over the heads of the defenders. During three days no change occurred in the situation on either side. The Burgundians, however, had succeeded in filling up the fosse on the right of the bailey gate; and they had thrown so many stones with their mangonels against the hoarding of the neighbouring towers, that these timber defences fell to pieces; but the stone battlement behind remained intact, and the defenders were still perfectly sheltered behind their merlons, whence they sent showers of quarrels and arrows. The fosse having been filled up (May 30th), the _cat_ advanced, rolling on planks between the two terraces, through the breach of the barbican. Then as the filling in of the fosse had an inclination towards the curtain, the _cat_ of itself went striking its iron muzzle against the wall (Fig. 42). Thereupon the besieged threw down on its double-sloped roof huge stones, beams, and small barrels of Greek fire. But the roof was solidly plated with iron; its slopes greatly inclined, and covered with earth and wetted mattresses, allowed the stones, beams, and barrels to slip off right and left. Men placed within the _cat_ thrust away the inflammable projectiles with long forks, so that they might not set fire to the sides of the gallery. This latter was preserved, therefore, despite the efforts of the besieged, and the miners, protected by its roof, set to work at the base of the wall. [Illustration: FIG. 42.--THE CAT.]