To these the Colonel replied briefly by stating that the capture of Chandernagore was beyond his cognizance, and had no relation to Pondicherry; that he merely required the soldiers of its garrison to yield as prisoners of war, promising that they should be treated with every honour and humanity; that he would send the grenadiers of his own regiment to receive possession of the Villenour Gate, and that of Fort St. Lewis; and that according to the kind and humane request of M. Lally, the mother and sisters of Raza Sahib should be escorted to Madras, and on no account be permitted to fall into the hands of their enemy, the Nabob Mohammed Ali Khan. To eight articles proposed by Father Lavacer, Superior of the Jesuits, requiring that the inhabitants should be treated in every respect like subjects of his Britannic Majesty; that they should have full liberty to exercise the Catholic religion; that the churches should be rejected; that all public papers should be sent to France; and that forty-one soldiers of the Volunteers of Bourbon should be permitted to return to their homes--Colonel Coote declined to make any reply. At eight o'clock on the morning of the 16th July, Lally with a bitter heart ordered the standard of France to be hauled down on Fort St. Lewis, and at that hour Coote's grenadiers received the Villenour Gate from the Regiment de Lally, while those of the 79th Regiment took possession of the citadel.[2] Thus fell Pondicherry after a blockade and siege which Lally's skill and valour had protracted under a thousand difficulties for the long period of eight months, against forces treble in number to those he commanded. Notwithstanding his fallen condition and the severe effects of a long illness, aggravated by the sultry climate, by bodily sufferings and anxiety, Lally marched out of the citadel with the air of a conqueror. "He is now as proud and haughty as ever," says an officer (who beheld him) in a letter to a periodical of the time; "but his great share of wit, sense, and martial ability are obscured by a savage ferocity, and an undisguised contempt for every person below the rank of general." This writer was ignorant of the high qualities of Lally, and the difficulties with which he had contended, or he would never have written thus. According to the "_exact state of the troops of his most Christian Majesty, under the command of Lieutenant-General Arthur Count de Lally, when he surrendered at discretion on the 16th of January, 1761,_" he marched out with the following--a miserable and famished band, hollow-eyed and gaunt--the few survivors of the Indian war:-- Artillery of Louis XV., officers and men 83 The Regiment de Lorraine, ditto 327 The Regiment de Lally, ditto (of the Irish Brigade) 230 The Regiment of the Marine, ditto 295