Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/302

 272 SIEGE OPERATIONS. CH A p. pose as to have in them a kind of beauty budding J out amidst things strictly technical. But after that day in April when the French miners opened three chasms in front of the Flag- staff Bastion, and so provided the rudiments of a new parallel, the subterranean fights did not have such a visible and physical bearing on the course of events that they well can send down a narrator to the shades below in search of facts thought in- dispensable for a merely lay account of the siege. The Russians, however, imbued with full know- ledge of what they achieved in these arduous struggles, and trusting, besides, to the abundant and continuous accounts they received from French deserters, have maintained with full con- fidence that the energies of the counter-miner The moral produced a moral effect which altogether upset tributedby the counsels of the French, drove them hurriedly to their into false paths, and long shielded the fortress vigorous counter- from danger m what was its most tender part. raining. ., . Why the French, having sapped their way up to close quarters with the Flagstaff Bastion, did not, after all, choose to assault it — this was nat- urally a question soon asked, and — till after the 19th of May — very easily answered by alleging the irresolution of Canrobert ; but when the fiery Belissier, having acceded to the command, was in this respect found to be following Canrobert's example, and when, after a while, he not only declared his resolve to abstain from assaulting the work, but even conducted himself with strange violence against a general officer who ventured