The besiegers could reach this work, which was out of range of the plateau, by a road descending gently towards the western arm of the rivulet.
These works had not been executed without attempts on the part of the besieged to destroy them, nor without considerable loss on the part of the Franks. A fortnight, however, after the enemy's arrival, they were completed, and strongly guarded.
The enemy's troops were thus disposed around the cité:--The large encampment on the north plateau was occupied by twelve thousand men; the defenders of the great contravallation on the same side numbered two thousand. The body lodged in the lower town consisted of six thousand men; the guard of the work opposite the small _tête de pont_, five hundred; that of the contravallation around the great _tête de pont_, one thousand two hundred; the work raised at the bottom of the plateau facing the east gate contained one thousand two hundred men. Total: twenty-two thousand nine hundred men. There remained, deducting for losses since the commencement of the siege, about ten thousand soldiers, who scoured and devastated the country, collected provisions and forage, and formed a reserve corps, ready to make a fresh attempt when the propitious moment arrived.
These preparations rendered it clear to Clodoald that the enemy since his first checks was acting with method, and preparing for a decisive action. He had quickly perceived that his attack would be directed to the weak points of the fortress,--that is to say, the northern salient and the banks of the river opposite the western bend of the cité; he had therefore strongly barricaded all the roads of the town leading to the quay, and had strengthened the latter with a _vallum_.
In addition to this, two hundred paces behind the square tower on the river, to the north, he had run another vallum, _a_, _b_, through the houses and gardens, following the slopes of the plateau in an oblique direction, and joining the south-west gate (Fig. 23). The habitations had been left as a mask in front of this entrenchment; a few houses and fences only had been cleared away to give a free space outside.
Clodoald could not attempt anything before the northern salient, the enemy being there in front of him in force; but within the salient itself he sunk ditches with retrenchments of earth and stakes, as shown in Fig. 24. These works being low and masked were invisible to the enemy outside. Every night he sent out of the city, by the postern which led to the bottom of the wide fosse on the northern front, spies who rendered him an account of the operations of the enemy.