[Illustration:  THE SIEGE OF TOULON, 1793, from “L’Histoire de France depuis la Revolution de 1789,” by Emmanuel Toulougeon.  Paris, An.  XII. [1803].  A. Fort Mulgrave.  A’.  Promontory of L’Eguillette. 1 and 2.  Batteries. 3.  Battery “Hommes sans Peur.”  The black and shaded rectangles are the Republican and Allied positions respectively.]

Carteaux having been superseded by Doppet, more energy was thrown into the operations.  Yet for him Buonaparte had scarcely more respect.  On November 15th an affair of outposts near Fort Mulgrave showed his weakness.  The soldiers on both sides eagerly took up the affray; line after line of the French rushed up towards that frowning redoubt:  O’Hara, the leader of the allied troops, encouraged the British in a sortie that drove back the blue-coats; whereupon Buonaparte headed the rallying rush to the gorge of the redoubt, when Doppet sounded the retreat.  Half blinded by rage and by the blood trickling from a slight wound in his forehead, the young Corsican rushed back to Doppet and abused him in the language of the camp:  “Our blow at Toulon has missed, because a——­ has beaten the retreat.”  The soldiery applauded this revolutionary licence, and bespattered their chief with similar terms.

A few days later the tall soldierly Dugommier took the command:  reinforcements began to pour in, finally raising the strength of the besiegers to 37,000 men.  Above all, the new commander gave Buonaparte carte blanche for the direction of the artillery.  New batteries accordingly began to ring the Little Gibraltar on the landward side; O’Hara, while gallantly heading a sortie, fell into the republicans’ hands, and the defenders began to lose heart.  The worst disappointment was the refusal of the Austrian Court to fulfil its promise, solemnly given in September, to send 5,000 regular troops for the defence of Toulon.

The final conflict took place on the night of December 16-17, when torrents of rain, a raging wind, and flashes of lightning added new horrors to the strife.  Scarcely had the assailants left the sheltering walls of La Seyne, than Buonaparte’s horse fell under him, shot dead:  whole companies went astray in the darkness:  yet the first column of 2,000 men led by Victor rush at the palisades of Fort Mulgrave, tear them down, and sweep into the redoubt, only to fall in heaps before a second line of defence:  supported by the second column, they rally, only to yield once more before the murderous fire.  In despair, Dugommier hurries on the column of reserve, with which Buonaparte awaits the crisis of the night.  Led by the gallant young Muiron, the reserve sweeps into the gorge of death; Muiron, Buonaparte, and Dugommier hack their way through the same embrasure:  their men swarm in on the overmatched red-coats and Spaniards, cut them down at their guns, and the redoubt is won.