So many attacks and engagements terribly weakened the garrison.  On the 28th of September some assistance was sent to the besieged by the daring of the Chevalier de Luxembourg.  It enabled them to sustain with vigour the fresh attacks that were directed against them, to repulse the enemy, and, by a grand sortie, to damage some of their works, and kill many of their men.  But all was in vain.  The enemy returned again and again to the attack.  Every attempt to cut off their supplies failed.  Finally, on the 23rd of October, a capitulation was signed.  The place had become untenable; three new breaches had been made on the 20th and 21st; powder and ammunition were failing; the provisions were almost all eaten up there was nothing for it but to give in.

Marechal Boufflers obtained all he asked, and retired into the citadel with all the prisoners of war, after two months of resistance.  He offered discharge to all the soldiers who did not wish to enter the citadel.  But not one of the six thousand he had left to him accepted it.  They were all ready for a new resistance, and when their chief appeared among them their joy burst out in the most flattering praises of him.  It was on Friday, the 26th of October, that they shut themselves up in the citadel.

The enemy opened their trenches before the citadel on the 29th of October.  On the 7th of November they made a grand attack, but were repulsed with considerable loss.  But they did not flinch from their work, and Boufflers began to see that he could not long hold out.  By the commencement of December he had only twenty thousand pounds of powder left; very little of other munitions, and still less food.  In the town and the citadel they had eaten eight hundred horses.  Boufflers, as soon as the others were reduced to this food, had it served upon his own table, and ate of it like the rest.  The King, learning in what state these soldiers were, personally sent word to Boufflers to surrender, but the Marechal, even after he had received this order, delayed many days to obey it.

At last, in want of the commonest necessaries, and able to protract his defence no longer, he beat a parley, signed a capitulation on the 9th of December, obtaining all he asked, and retired from Lille.  Prince Eugene, to whom he surrendered, treated him with much distinction and friendship, invited him to dinner several times,—­overwhelmed him, in fact, with attention and civilities.  The Prince was glad indeed to have brought to a successful issue such a difficult siege.

CHAPTER XLIII