PART of d'autemarre's troops. 163 take some prisoners, and prepared on the arrival CHAP. of reinforcements (for which he appealed) to !_ pursue the adopted design of operating against the Malakoff from within the enceinte.* It is true that the enemy flushed with the success of his re- sistance elsewhere, relieved from anxiety in the quarters assailed by Mayran and Brunet, and act- ing under the impulsion of so ardent a commander as Khrouleff, was soon moving troops towards his lost Gervais Battery, and the part of the Karabelnaya which d'Autemarre's light troops had entered : but on the other hand, those valiant French who had broken into the fortress proved resolute no less than bold, the Chasseurs at once making ready to defend house by house the ground they had won in the Faubourg, and the Engineers who had seized the Gervais Battery undertaking with excellent zeal to strengthen their hold of the work. They turned one of its guns against the enemy. By their firmness, these men — the Chasseurs in the Faubourg, and the eighty Engineers in the captured battery — secured ample time at each place for the junction of any fresh troops that d'Autemarre might promptly send down. This seizure by resolute men of the too swiftly passing occasion was a feat, we can see, of great moment; for — with aid, it is true, at one stage
- Niel, p. 316. This was certainly an extraordinary achieve-
ment to be compassed by eighty sappers ; but Niel, who com- manded the Engineers, has made the statement officially in positive terms, and I cannot (with the knowledge I have) undertake to question its truth.
