in full armor, by
hard blows beat back the troops, already sanguine of complete
success.[230] A few days later the "tourelles" themselves were scaled and
taken.[231]

After so poor a beginning, the small garrison of Orleans had sufficient
reason to fear the issue of the trial to which they were subjected. But,
so far from abandoning their courage, they applied themselves with equal
assiduity to their religious and to their military duties. "In addition to
the usual sermons and the prayers at the guard-houses, public
extraordinary prayers were made at six o'clock in the morning; at the
close of which the ministers and the entire people, without exception,
betook themselves to work with all their might upon the fortifications,
until four in the evening, when every one again attended prayers."
Everywhere the utmost devotion was manifested, women of all ranks sharing
with their husbands and brothers in the toils of the day, or, if too
feeble for these active exertions, spending their time in tending the sick
and wounded.[232]

[Sidenote: "A new and very terrible device."]

Not only did the Huguenots, when they found their supply of lead falling
short, make their cannon-balls of bell-metal--of which the churches and
monasteries were doubtless the source--and of brass, but they turned this
last material to a use till now, it would appear, unheard of. "I have
learned this day, the fifteenth instant, of the Spaniards," wrote the
English ambassador from the royal court, which was at a safe distance, in
the city of Blois, "that they of Orleans shoot brass which is hollow, and
so devised within that when it falls it opens and breaks into many pieces
with a great fire, and hurts and kills all who are about it. Which is a
new device and very terrible, for it pierces the house first, and breaks
at the last rebound. Every man in Portereau is fain to run away, they
cannot tell whither, when they see where the shot falls."[233]

[Sidenote: Huguenot reverses.]

It could not, however, be denied that there was much reason for
discouragement in the general condition of the Protestant cause throughout
the country. Of the places so brilliantly acquired in the spring of the
preceding year, the greater part had been lost. Normandy and Languedoc
were the only bright spots on the map of France. Lyons still remained in
the power of the Huguenots, in the south-east; but, though repeated
assaults of the Duke of Nemours had been repulsed, it was