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4 ) 
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 that flanking 
consists. 
The invention of gunpowder occasioned deep-founded 
