ering
guns having at length been mounted, a breach was effected in the salient
angle of one of the horn-works, and on the same night a lodgement was
effected. A vigorous sortie, on the 10th September, hardly retarded the
progress of the operations, and a sap was made under the covered way.
Marlborough, who visited the besiegers' lines on the 18th, however,
expressed some displeasure at the slow progress of the siege; and in
consequence, on the 20th, another assault was hazarded. It was most
obstinately resisted, but at length the assailants overcame all
opposition and bursting in, carried a demi-bastion and several adjoining
works, though with a loss of two thousand men. Great as this loss was,
it was not so severe as that of one officer who fell; for Eugene
himself, transported with ardour, had taken part in the assault, and was
seriously wounded. This grievous casualty not only gave the utmost
distress to Marlborough, but immensely augmented his labours; for it
threw upon him at once the direction of the siege, and the command of
the covering army. Every morning at break of day he was on horseback to
observe Vendome's army; and if all was quiet in front, he rode to the
lines and directed the siege in person till evening, when he again
returned to the camp of the covering force. By thus in a manner doubling
himself, this great man succeeded in preventing any serious
inconvenience being experienced even from so great a catastrophe as
Eugene's wound, and he infused such vigour into the operations of the
siege, that, on the 23d September, great part of the tenaillons were
broken, with a large portion of the covered way. At the same time the
ammunition of the garrison began to fail so much in consequence of the
constant fire they had kept up for above a month, that Marshal Boufflers
sent intimation to Vendome, that unless a supply of that necessary
article was speedily obtained, he should be obliged to surrender.[34]

The French generals, aware how much the fortress was straitened, were
meanwhile straining every nerve to raise the siege; but such was the
terror inspired by Marlborough's presence, and the skill with which his
defensive measures were taken, that they did not venture to hazard an
attack on the covering army. But a well-conceived project of Vendome's,
for throwing a supply of powder into the fortress, in part succeeded;
although many of the horsemen who carried it were cut off, some
succeeded in making their w