An army-corps, commanded by the Sardinian general, Cialdini, was encamped outside the advanced works, and had planted batteries which sent projectiles hissing and screaming not only over the ramparts and citadel, but into the heart of the thickly peopled city; and the fleet of the Sardinian admiral, Persano, was steaming to and fro outside the harbor, and occasionally joining in the work of destruction by pitching a heavy missile into the Lazaretto (occupied as barracks), or against the masonry of the Mole. De la Moricière, the general to whom Abd-el-Kader had surrendered, and who had driven the Red Republicans of Paris from the left bank of the Seine in the June of 1848, was "holding the fort" for Pio Nono. He had escaped but a few days previously from the disaster of Castelfidardo with a troop of light dragoons, and was battling stubbornly against odds which forbade the chance of success. He had not much faith in his Swiss--they were purely and simply mercenaries; the Italians at his disposal were neither unquestionably loyal nor of the stuff of which heroes are made; the only men he had beyond his own small ring of French Legitimists--his personal followers so to speak--on whose courage and fidelity he could depend were the Irish and the Austrians. The former, the Battaglione di San Patrizio, were in the citadel and the environing entrenched camp; the latter, being more seasoned and better armed, were assigned to the approaches of the beleaguered stronghold. The inhabitants of Ancona were by no means all well affected; but the one sentiment in which they were unanimous was the hope that it might soon end--for all were in a mortal fright. The roar of artillery, the bursting of shells, the collapse of shattered walls, bugle-blasts, drum-beats, the tramp of armed men, the crepitation of the hoofs of cantering chargers on the hard pavements, were frequent, and now and again rose a shriek of terror, or an alarm of fire. But the inhabitants took care to keep away these sounds as much as possible; they cowered in dark cellars, and prayed and cursed, and played _mora_, and helped to make each other uncomfortable by the contagion of an abject poltroonery.