But the special point for which we give the woodcut here, is to illustrate the use of the mantelet. It will be seen--though somewhat imperfectly, from the fragment of the engraving introduced--that these defences have been brought up to the front of the attacking party in such numbers as to form an almost continuous wall, behind which the men-at-arms are sheltered; on the right are great fixed mantelets, with a hole in the middle of each, through which the muzzle of a gun is thrust; while the cannoniers work their guns as behind the walls of a fort. [Illustration: _Use of the Pavis, etc._] [Illustration: _Cannon and Mortar._] Similar movable defences, variously constructed, continued to be used down to a very late period. For example, in some large plans of the array of the army of Henry VIII., preserved in the British Museum (Cottonian MS., Augustus III., f. 1 v.), the cannon are flanked by huge mantelets of timber, which protect the cannoniers. In the one engraved between pp. 454 and 455, we see a representation of the commencement of the battle, showing some of the mantelets overthrown by the assault of soldiers armed with poleaxes. In modern warfare the sharpshooter runs out into the open, carrying a sand-bag by way of pavis, behind which he lies and picks off the enemy, and the artillery throw up a little breastwork, or mantelet, of sand-bags. Sometimes the besieging army protected itself by works of a still more permanent kind. It threw up embankments with a pallisade at top, or sometimes constructed a breastwork, or erected a fort, of timber. For example, in the Royal MS. 14 E. IV., at f. 14, we have a picture of an assault upon a fortified place, in which the besiegers have strengthened their position by a timber breastwork. It is engraved at p. 443; the whole picture is well worth study. Again, in the Cottonian MS., Augustus V., at folio 266, is a camp with a wooden fence round it. An army in the field often protected its position in a similar way. So far back as the eleventh century the historians tell us that William the Conqueror brought over a timber fort with him to aid his operations. The plan of surrounding the camp with the waggons and baggage of the army is perhaps one of the most primitive devices of warfare, and we find it used down to the end of the period which is under our consideration. In the MS. already mentioned, Augustus III., on the reverse of folio 4, is a picture of an army of the time of Henry VIII. encamped by a river, and enclosed on the open sides by the baggage, and by flat-bottomed boats on their carriages, which we suppose have been provided for the passage of the stream.