mouth of the shaft, and gave orders to spring the mine. The explosion
was prodigious; a part of the tower fell with the concussion, and the
moat was choked with heaps of rubbish. The assailants sprang across the
passage thus afforded, and mastered the ruined portion of the fort. They
were met in the breach, however, by the unflinching defenders of the
city, and, after a fierce combat of some hours, were obliged to retire;
remaining masters, however, of the moat, and of the ruined portion of the
ravelin. This was upon the 3rd of April.

Five days afterwards, a general assault was ordered. A new mine having
been already constructed towards the Tongres ravelin, and a faithful
cannonade having been kept up for a fortnight against the Bois-le-Duc
gate, it was thought advisable to attack at both points at once. On the
8th of April, accordingly, after uniting in prayer, and listening to a
speech from Alexander Farnese, the great mass of the Spanish army
advanced to the breach. The moat had been rendered practicable in many
places by the heaps of rubbish with which it had been encumbered, and by
the fagots and earth with which it had been filled by the besiegers. The
action at the Bois-le-Duc gate was exceedingly warm. The tried veterans
of Spain, Italy, and Burgundy, were met face to face by the burghers of
Maestricht, together with their wives and children. All were armed to
the teeth, and fought with what seemed superhuman valor. The women,
fierce as tigresses defending their young, swarmed to the walls, and
fought in the foremost rank. They threw pails of boiling water on the
besiegers, they hurled firebrands in their faces; they quoited blazing
pitch-hoops with, unerring dexterity about their necks. The rustics too,
armed with their ponderous flails, worked as cheerfully at this bloody
harvesting as if thrashing their corn at home. Heartily did they winnow
the ranks of the royalists who came to butcher them, and thick and fast
fell the invaders, fighting bravely, but baffled by these novel weapons