Et--la muette parlera."--Valenciennes MS.


For some unknown reason, the rather insipid quatrain was tortured into a
baleful prophecy. It was considered very ominous that the battery should
be first opened against this Sibylline tower. The chimes, too, which had
been playing, all through the siege, the music of Marot's sacred songs,
happened that morning to be sounding forth from every belfry the twenty-
second psalm: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

It was Palm Sunday, 23d of March. The women and children were going
mournfully about the streets, bearing green branches in their hands, and
praying upon their knees, in every part of the city. Despair and
superstition had taken possession of citizens, who up to that period had
justified La Noue's assertion, that none could endure a siege like
Huguenots. As soon as the cannonading began, the spirit of the
inhabitants seemed to depart. The ministers exhorted their flocks in
vain as the tiles and chimneys began to topple into the streets, and the
concussions of the artillery were responded to by the universal wailing
of affrighted women.

Upon the very first day after the unmasking of the batteries, the city
sent to Noircarmes, offering almost an unconditional surrender. Not the
slightest breach had been effected--not the least danger of an assault
existed--yet the citizens, who had earned the respect of their
antagonists by the courageous manner in which they had sallied and
skirmished during the siege, now in despair at any hope of eventual
succor, and completely demoralized by the course of recent events outside
their walls, surrendered ignominiously, and at discretion. The only
stipulation agreed to by Noircarmes was, that the city should not be