After a brief commotion, the artillerymen began their advance.
Naturally, Lamoricière would never really send his precious artillerymen to their deaths. He had already made arrangements in advance, and the task of reassuring them was naturally left to his adjutant.
"Don't worry! In all these days, apart from the first two, have you seen the Orléans artillery launch a counterattack?"
At the adjutant's words, they realized they really hadn't.
Before, they had been so focused on relentlessly bombarding the fortress that they had completely forgotten the enemy hadn't retaliated.
It wasn't that they had never retaliated. It was just that those Congreve Rockets flew all over the place, and even the closest ones had landed dozens of meters away from them.
But that had been from more than eight hundred meters away. What if they advanced to within three hundred meters?
Seeing the artillerymen's anxiety, the adjutant quickly said,
"The infantry will carry doors to shield you as you advance."
Using doors to defend against rockets and stray bullets sounded somewhat ridiculous, but it was better than nothing.
As for refusing to go, that was even more out of the question. The example was right in front of them.
The artillery colonel who had just been shot was a man of considerable standing. Not only was he a bona fide graduate of Saint-Cyr, he was also a gentleman from Paris.
Compared to him, these peasant soldiers were nothing.
Lamoricière hadn't done this on a sudden burst of enthusiasm. First, he believed that after days of assault, the enemy must be nearing their limit. If they had any way to fight back, they would have used it already instead of taking a beating in silence.
Second, he had the finest artillery in all of France, if not the entire world—the M1841