At the head of all the forces he could collect, ten thousand regular infantry of France, and hordes of the wild Iroquois, Louis de St. Veran, Marquis of Montcalm, and his second in command, the Baron de Beauchatel, Chevalier of St. Louis, now invested Fort William Henry, and pushed the siege with a vigour that was all the greater because General Webb, with four thousand British troops, was posted at some distance, for the purpose of protecting Munro's garrison, a duty about which he did not give himself the smallest concern whatever.
Before daybreak next morning, the French artillery opened heavily on the turf ramparts, the wooden palisades and log huts of the fort; while a fire of musketry was maintained upon it from every available point, and the Indian marksmen, from behind every tree,
