The Sire de Montcler decided that he must at all risks retard the besieger's progress if he could do nothing more. He reckoned that in two days the enemy would be able to effect a breach, either by his cannon or by mining, and that then the _cité_ must be taken; for the garrison could not long hold out behind the interior retrenchments. In the cannonade of the preceding days the Sire de Montcler had lost but few men, and his reserve force had not been drawn upon. He therefore got them under arms about nine o'clock, summoned a troop of one hundred well-mounted horsemen, and gave the following orders:--The hundred horsemen, accompanied by a hundred _coutilliers_ on foot, were to sally forth by the eastern gate against the post established at the mills, attack the small encampment installed in the meadows below, fall back by the road skirting the plateau on the east side, skirmish on the outskirts of the French camp, or cut down the posts they came upon on their way, and then return at full speed to the east gate. A second body of a hundred foot soldiers was to be at the cross road above the mills to protect their retreat. During these attacks, designed to attract the enemy's attention to the left, a troop of five hundred men on foot would issue from a masked postern giving egress below the front of the abbey on the west, and filing off along the ramparts, vigorously attack the cavalier C, and the battery A, spike the pieces, and do all possible damage. It was to retire by the same way, protected by the western ramparts.
Messire Charles d'Amboise was too experienced a warrior to fail in pushing his advantage. He knew that success, especially in sieges, ultimately accrues to him who leaves the enemy no repose, and does not fall asleep when his first advantage has been gained. The north front of the place was rendered powerless; but an energetic governor of a town may, in a single night, accumulate many obstacles, devise a hundred stratagems, and very greatly hinder the efficiency of an attack. Charles d'Amboise had therefore resolved to have fascines conveyed to the ditch by a body of a thousand men, some yards from the great tower of the corner G, and to attempt an escalade, while the ordnance, firing on this tower at discretion, hindered the defenders from fortifying the platform again. He had observed the embrasure on the flank of this tower raking the ditch, and had summoned a body of twenty men, furnished with mattresses, and pieces of wood to mask it. As regarded the _fausse-braie_, that was ruined, and could not present any serious obstacle.