ADVANTAGE OF TOWERS. 89 



Let us add that, in such an uneasy position, a man has 

 neither power nor address. To remedy some of these 

 inconveniences, they crowned this sort of wall with a 

 construction which the architects called corbels, and upon 

 which the salient parapets rested. Then the hollows, 

 the openings, or if we must recur to the technical term, 

 the machicolations comprehended between the parapet 

 and the rampart, became a means of throwing down 

 stones and burning substances, &c. on those who were 

 trying to sap the walls or escalade them. 



To strike the enemy unremittingly, when he reaches 

 the foot of the rampart of a town, is undoubtedly excel- 

 lent ; but to prevent his advancing so far would be still 

 better. They approached this better method, without, 

 however, entirely attaining it, by constructing at various 

 distances, along the wall of the city, large round or 

 polygonal towers, forming very salient points. If we in 

 imagination carry ourselves behind the parapet of the 

 platforms with which those towers were crowned, it will 

 be easy to perceive that without leaning forward, with- 

 out much exposure, by much less exposure than the 

 assailants undergo, the garrison of each tower could 

 observe the next tower from top to bottom, and more- 

 over a certain portion of the intermediate wall. Of that 

 part of the wall which is now called the curtain, at least 

 one half was visible down to the base by the garrison in 

 the tower to the right, and the other half by the garrison 

 in the tower to the left, so that there was no longer any 

 one portion of the wall of which the besieger could 

 approach the base, without exposing himself to the 

 direct attack of the besieged. It is in this thai flanking 

 consists. 



The invention of gunpowder occasioned deep-founded 



