He lost no time in setting all hands to work on the fortifications; but at first little more could be done than to complete the fixing of the palisades, for the scarcely credible fact is on record that the necessary works for the main defence of the city could not be prosecuted for want of the common and essential tools. The annals of the city are silent as to the parties responsible for this monstrous neglect; but it is certain that if the Turks had not lingered before Raab, or if by greater expedition on the march they had arrived before Vienna a few hours sooner than they did, that city must have fallen without a blow, and with all its treasures, into the hands of the destroyer. It was not till the following day after Stahremberg’s arrival that, by the unwearied exertions of the Imperial Chancellor Benedict Geizer, the contents of the secret archives and the treasury were conveyed away by the Danube under circumstances of imminent peril. The population of all classes, the richest citizens, and even women and ecclesiastics, now laboured unremittingly at the fortifications. The burgomaster, Von Liebenberg, set the example, doing active service with a wheelbarrow. The wood stored for building or fuel without the walls was conveyed into the town; every householder was enjoined to have water ready on his roof, and all persons whose usual employment would be in abeyance during the siege were armed and taken into the regular service of the state. They formed a body of 1200. The most important works were conducted between the 7th and the 12th July, and towards the end of that period almost under the eye of the enemy, who on the 10th had crossed the Austrian frontier at Hungarian Altenburg, destroying everything as he advanced. At Klosterneuburg a number of boats were collected for the construction of a floating bridge there in case of necessity, and the arsenals were well stored with ammunition brought by water from Crems. On the 12th the nearer vicinity of the enemy was evinced by the contracting circle of blazing villages. From the Hungarian frontier to the neighbourhood of the Kahlenberg every unfortified place bore lurid token of Turkish occupation—Baden, Mödling, Ebenfurt, Inzersdorf, Pellendorf, Laxenburg, Laa. Neustadt alone held out by the strength of its walls and the gallantry of its inmates. Perchtolsdorf emulated this example in the first instance, but its ulterior fate demands separate and particular narration.