OF REGULAR FORTIFICATION.

if they had seen that out of danger, and if the relief brought by this conjured element had not attacked them, and had not taken from them the hope of taking the city. It is certainly not without reason that Strada says this element conspired against the besiegers: for if we believe Emanuel de Meteren, one may use in this juncture, with as good a right as elsewhere, these two lines from a poet;

On the second of October 1574, the northwest wind made the tide rise with all the more impetuosity as it was then the full moon. This wind was succeeded by the southwest, which happily pushed the relief fleet toward this desolate city, whose siege ended on the third day of October. The next day, as if the affair being done Aeolus and Neptune had sounded the retreat and recalled their troops, a great wind blew from the southeast, and then a violent storm arose from the north, which pushed all this deluge back into the sea. So much so that one walked on dry land where great ships had passed, fully loaded, the day before.

(a) Heinf. book 2. of the Siege of Bois-le-Duc.

Regarding the passage of the IJssel, and the incursion of the Croats into the Veluwe a region in the Netherlands, it will suffice to add this word for my subject: (a) By the command of the General (Monseigneur the Prince of Orange, Frederick Henry), those of Muiden opened a sluice, which covered with water everything that is between this city and Utrecht. This deluge did not only swell the Vecht, which descends from Utrecht to Muiden; and from there renders itself into the Zuyderzee: but the rest was also inundated so suddenly, that no one could have known how to pass between the strait and Utrecht, nor between Utrecht and the river Leck, which is an arm of the Rhine. Thus, the opening of a single sluice made from this southern strait to the Rhine a great ditch, which separated this part of the United Provinces, of which the enemy then made itself master for some time, from the whole body, which remained free and victorious. Thus, a barrier was placed before the enemy, beyond which it would have been fatal for him to carry the hope of his victories.

Cities made strong by waters: Venice.

I have shown you an entire country fortified by waters; I will now produce for you cities. I must place in the first rank this agreeable Venice, which the sea renders impregnable without it having need of ditches, walls, towers, or ramparts; so that, placed between two Emperors, surrounded by so many Kings and powerful Princes its neighbors, and so often attacked and ill-treated by all of them, it sustains and still preserves its ancient majesty across so many centuries.

& Mantua in Italy.

Machiavelli, in the place I have cited, represents to us two places in Italy, extremely strong by the marshes and the waters that surround them, one is Ferrara, and the other Mantua, which has all around it a marsh of more than a cannon shot.

Dordrecht in Holland.

Dordrecht, Capital of Holland, has been separated from it by the violence of the tides, which have dug all around such a wide ditch that seventy-two villages, and several thousands of people were pitifully