Prague, garrisoned by 28,000 French, was soon invested by 60,000 enemies. Belleisle offered to give up the Bohemian capital, on condition of being allowed to retire without molestation; but the besiegers would listen to nothing short of a surrender at discretion. After having made a protracted defence, he began to be threatened by famine, and, in this extremity, he resolved to break through the Austrian quarters. At the head of 15,000 men, with twelve days’ provisions, he sallied from Prague, on the night of the 16th of December, 1742, and directed his march upon Egra, which city was at the distance of thirty-eight leagues. He took his measures so well, that, though he was closely pursued by the enemy’s light troops, he sustained little injury. The sufferings of the French army were, nevertheless, extreme. Compelled to bivouac for ten nights among snow and ice, and often without wood for fires, the mortality among the troops was appalling. The line of the retreat was marked throughout by whole platoons frozen to death; seventeen hundred men perished in the course of the ten days. In 1746 and 1747, Belleisle was charged with the defence of Dauphiné; these were his last campaigns. In 1748 he was created a duke and peer, and in 1757 he became war minister. He held the war department for three years, and reformed many abuses. In 1761 he died childless, the last of his family, his heir, the Count of Gisors, having fallen at the battle of Crevelt. His brother, the chevalier, had gone before him, the victim of an intemperate courage. From 1734 to 1746, the chevalier was often actively engaged, both in fighting and negotiating, and displayed equal talents in each occupation. It being an object of importance to open a passage into the heart of Piedmont, the two brothers agreed that an attack should be made on the formidable intrenched post of the Piedmontese, at the Col de l’Assiette. The chevalier was animated by the prospect of gaining the rank of marshal, in case of success. The position of the enemy was all but inaccessible, and was fortified with more than usual care, well provided with artillery, and held by a large force. Belleisle led his men to the attack, but found it impossible even to approach his antagonists, who scattered death among his ranks, with almost perfect impunity to themselves. Instead of retiring from a hopeless contest, he madly persisted in his efforts, till the slaughter became horrible. He at last put himself at the head of a body of officers, and made a desperate but fruitless assault, in which he fell, along with most of those who surrounded him. Nearly four thousand of the assailants were slain, and half as many wounded, while the loss of the Piedmontese fell far short of a hundred men.