Secure, therefore, against being cut off on his right by the Imperialists, the governor sent out three hundred militiamen and three companies of soldiers, kept under arms after supper, by the western gate, next to the castle; and another three hundred of the militia, and two companies by the eastern gate. This second troop was commissioned to make for the causeway of the pool, attack the enemy's post established beyond the embankment, outflank it on his right and pursue it hotly along the rivulet. Rincourt commanded the foremost troop of six hundred men. He descended the slope of the bridge, crossed the rivulet by means of planks and trestles which he had ready prepared behind the cavalier, and attacked the post of three hundred men established at two hundred yards below the stone bridge. Finding themselves attacked by a body much more numerous than themselves, they quitted the bivouacs in all haste, and set off along the left bank of the rivulet to join the second post (consisting) of three hundred men established between them and the dam, as the bridge was broken. This was just what Rincourt anticipated. At the same time, in an opposite direction the post at the pool embankment was in flight, pursued by the second troop of the besieged,--depending on getting the support of the post at the rivulet and that of the bridge, since they were outflanked on their right. These two posts--that of the bridge and that of the embankment--retreating as fast as the nature of the ground permitted in an inverse direction, to the post at the rivulet, the latter supposed it was an attack, and fired several arquebusades at the two troops of these outposts. They recognised each other with difficulty, and these eight hundred men thus collected, saw themselves attacked on two sides by Rincourt and the second troop of the besieged. The combat did not last long, in consequence of the confusion into which they were thrown as much as through the numerical inferiority. Few resisted, many sought the marshes, and two or three hundred laid down their arms and begged for quarter. Of those who had betaken themselves right and left to the marshes, about a hundred managed to reach the camp in the morning, the others were killed by the peasants. Forcia, informed in the middle of the night of the attack on his south-eastern posts, got a thousand men under arms. But the weather continued as bad as ever; the captains obeyed with a very ill grace; they had lost all confidence, and it was not until daylight that Galas's lieutenant was able to go down into the valley. His three posts were taken, and he found from two to three hundred men dead or wounded on the banks of the rivulet.