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Scan 76
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
2 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 62. See the scan on archive.org.
1the town, letting Eugene enter with a few more troops; these advanced and captured the French guard and the Marshal Villeroi, who was suddenly awakened out of a peaceful slumber. They then, as quietly, took possession of the town hall, and would, probably, have succeeded in making good their seizure of the city had not one of those unexpected incidents which no human prudence can foresee upset all Eugene's plans and lost for him the entire fruits which he might have anticipated from the success of his enterprise. It was now about four o'clock in the morning, and neither the garrison nor the townspeople had made the slightest movement, being all, doubtless, sound asleep. The day drawing near, it was found that the Count de Merci, who had seized the gate of the Po, was unable to follow up his success in consequence of two Irish regiments, which had been kept up all night waiting to be drilled by an officer who had not appeared, discovering the assailants and attacking them vigorously. The noise began to spread, and the French garrison came out to the assistance of the Irish, and ultimately drove the enemy off, while Prince Eugene, when he came to learn this news, and saw the townspeople gradually waking up, made a very orderly retreat through the gate by which he entered. Such is the story of the celebrated so-called siege of Cremona, which was no siege at all. It all happened before breakfast, and, indeed, before the majority of the citizens of Cremona were out of their beds; yet one distinguished writer, and others not particularly distinguished, speak of it in terms which would lead those unacquainted with the facts to suppose that the year 1702 was for Stradivari one of exceptional trouble. The "siege" certainly was the
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