Gondomar, with about a thousand men, had taken refuge in the castle; and from the summit of its towers the Burgundian king could see his faithful cité burning, and hear the shouts of the victors and the vanquished approaching nearer and nearer the walls of this last retreat. He had been unwilling to close the gates, that he might gather in the unfortunate defenders; and towards the end of the night these, driven into the southern extremity of the cité by the enemy and the fire, began then to arrive in crowds, many being wounded, and among them women and children. The castle was being filled, and the enemy was approaching; so the bridge was thrown into the fosse and the gates were shut. Engrossed with pillage, the Franks allowed the day which succeeded this disastrous night to pass by without attempting anything against the castle; and not before evening could the Frank king restore any degree of order in the burning cité. There were not enough provisions in the castle to feed its numerous occupants for forty hours. This was just what Secondinus anticipated; accordingly he had no difficulty in persuading the Frank king to rest content with investing the stronghold. Gondomar, overwhelmed with grief, and seeing his helplessness, sought death by throwing himself from the top of one of the towers. The fugitives were forced to surrender at discretion, and most of them were carried away into slavery. The Frank kings destroyed the most important of the defensive works, so as to render the cité Juliana incapable of sustaining a siege. But those Roman works were massive; and two centuries afterwards the remains of the towers and ramparts still presented an imposing mass of ruins. The plateau was then a waste, and the ruins were overgrown with a luxuriant vegetation; only a few shepherds' huts were to be seen in this desolated region. On the western declivity, between the river and the ancient ramparts, extended a poor little town, whose population did not amount to more than twelve or fifteen hundred souls. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 9: See Fig. 16.] [Footnote 10: See Fig. 16.] [Footnote 11: See the plan, Fig. 16.] [Footnote 12: See Fig. 16.] [Footnote 13: See Fig. 16.] [Footnote 14: See Fig. 24.] [Footnote 15: See B, Fig. 16.] [Footnote 16: See B, Fig. 16.] CHAPTER IX. _THE FEUDAL CASTLE._