town, and many signs of it were found when the cathedral of S. Stephen
was built, the unfortunate church which went down before the exigencies
of a siege under Louis XIV. The barrack-master proved to be a most
interesting man, knowing many details of Cæsar's life and campaigns
which I suspect were not known to that captain himself. He had served in
Algeria, and assented to the proposition that more soldiers died there
of absinthe than of Arabs, stating his conviction that three-fourths of
the whole deaths are caused by that pernicious extract of wormwood, and
that he ought himself to have died of it long ago. He pointed out the
difference between the massive masonry of the period of the Spanish
occupation and the less impressive work of more recent times, and showed
the dungeon from which Marshal Bourmont bought his escape, in the time
of the first Napoleon.

The floor of one of the little look-out towers is composed of a
tombstone, representing a priest in full ecclesiastical dress, and my
question as to how it came there elicited the following story:--When
Louis XIV. was besieging the citadel, he placed his head-quarters, and a
strong battery, on the summit of the Mont Chaudane,[42] which commands
the citadel on one side as the Brégille does on the other. Among the
besieged was a monk named Schmidt, probably one of the Low-country men
to whom the Franche Comté was then a sort of home, as forming part of
the dominions of Spain; and this monk was the most active supporter of
the defence, against the large party within the walls which was anxious
to render the town. He was also an admirable shot; and on one of the
last days of the siege, as he stood in the little tower where the
tombstone now lies, the King and his staff rode to the front of the
plateau on the Mont Chaudane to survey the citadel; whereupon some one
pointed out to Schmidt that now he had a fair chance of putting an end
at once to the siege and the invasion. Accordingly, he took a musket