He had already reached the edge of that fatal fosse, and, brandishing his sword, shouted 'Picardy to the assault! forward with the ladders! forward my braves! Vive Louis le Roi!' There a shot struck him! I saw the crimson blood spout over his white uniform, as he bent forward and fell headlong into the ditch. This shot was fired by one beside me: I turned, and beheld M. Schreckhorn, the officer of Swiss, in the act of reloading his arquebuse, with a grin of triumph; and I had some difficulty in controlling my first impulse to brain him with the butt of my musket. Here also fell the Sieur de la Rivière, captain of French musketeers, who having, it was affirmed, neglected to put on his scapular, was shot through the very place where the Madonna's picture would have hung. He was brother of the celebrated Abbé de la Rivière, who, at this very time, having lost the royal favour by visiting Clara d'Amboise, was sent to the Bastille to study practical philosophy and new periwigs together. Under a storm of lead and iron, the leading company had already thrown themselves into the fosse, and were planting their ladders against the sloping stone glacis of the redoubt, when Schreckhorn flung among them a _pate de grenades_, or earthen pot, filled with gunpowder and grenades, having iron spikes upon them; while at the same moment the petardiers of De Bitche, like brave and reckless fellows as they were, lifted bombs in their hands, lighted their fuses, and, with all their force, hurled them over the parapet into the crowded fosse below, where they exploded with the _pate_, destroying, tearing to pieces the unfortunate stormers, and paralysing the rest, who were already sufficiently disheartened by the loss they had sustained, and by the fall of their brilliant leader. The assault was abandoned, and a precipitate retreat succeeded--a retreat galled by a fire of cannon, muskets, and arquebuses, from the ramparts of the tower and its outworks; while the stubborn Swiss, the fierce Imperialists, and infuriated Lorrainers, who composed the garrison, about eight hundred in all, raised a wild and tumultuous hurrah; for never before had the regiment de Picardy been known to retreat. Schreckhorn flung down his musket and drew his rapier, exclaiming, 'Lorraine and the Emperor! the Emperor and Lorraine! A sortie! volunteers for a sortie! Fall in, my comrades! fall in!'