dered for a week
between the English camp and the ramparts of the town, dying of hunger
and misery, without Lally's consenting to receive them back into the
place; the English at last allowed them to pass. The most severe
requisitions had been ordered to be made on all the houses of
Pondicherry, and the irritation was extreme; the heroic despair of M. de
Lally was continually wringing from him imprudent expressions. "I would
rather go and command a set of Caffres than remain in this Sodom, which
the English fire, in default of Heaven's, must sooner or later destroy,"
had for a long time past been a common expression of the general's, whose
fate was henceforth bound up with that of Pondicherry.

He held out for six weeks, in spite of famine, want of money, and
ever-increasing dissensions. A tempest had caused great havoc to the
English squadron which was out at sea; Lally was waiting and waiting for
the arrival of M. d'Ache with the fleet which had but lately sought
refuge at Ile de France after a fresh reverse. From Paris, on the report
of an attack projected by the--English against Bourbon and Ile de France,
ministers had given orders to M. d'Ache not to quit those waters. Lally
and Pondicherry waited in vain.

It became necessary to surrender; the council of the Company called upon
the general to capitulate; Lally claimed the honors of war, but Coote
would have the town at discretion; the distress was extreme as well as
the irritation. Pondicherry was delivered up to the conquerors on the
16th of January, 1761; the fortifications and magazines were razed;
French power in India, long supported by the courage or ability of a few
men, was foundering, never to rise again. "Nobody can have a higher
opinion than I of M. de Lally," wrote Colonel Coote; "he struggled
against obstacles that I considered insurmountable, and triumphed over
them. There is not in India another man who could have so long kept an
army standing without pay and without resources in any direction."
"A convincing proof of his merits," said another English officer, "is his
long and vigorous resistance in a place in which he was universally
detested."

[Illustration: Lally at Pondicherry----184]

Hatred bears bitterer fruits than is imagined even by those who provoke
it. The animosity which M. de Lally had excited in India was everywhere
an obstacle to the defence; and it was destined to cost him his life and
imperil his honor. Scarcely had