VAUBAN, Sebastien Le Prestre de (1633-1707), marshal of France, was born in the neighbourhood of Saulieu in Burgundy (now in the department of Côte-d’Or) on 15th May 1633. At an early age he was left an orphan in very poor circumstances, and his boyhood and youth were spent among the peasantry of his native place, thus enabling him to gain that sympathetic insight into the condition of the agricultural classes which he afterwards showed in his economic writings. He owed his early education and his first instruction in the rudiments of mathematics and surveying to a friendly curé, who had taken an interest in him and discerned his abilities. At the age of seventeen he joined the Spanish troops under the prince of Condé, but after about a year’s campaigning was taken prisoner by the French. He then became known to Mazarin, who treated him with kindness and enlisted him in the service of the king. In 1653 he first earned repute as an engineer by the share he had in the capture of Sainte-Menehould, and after further distinction at Stenay and Clermont he was given a lieutenancy and received in 1655 his commission as an “ingénieur du roi.” Between that year and the peace of 1659 he took part in numerous successful sieges—especially those of Gravelines, Ypres, and Oudenarde. After the cession of Dunkirk, Fort Louis, and Mardyke in 1662 he had charge of the work of fortifying them as frontier towns. On the renewal of war in 1667 he saw much service in Flanders, and gained special distinction in the siege of Lille, of which town he ultimately became governor, the king making him a lieutenant in the guards and bestowing on him a pension. The originality and success of his methods were now fully recognized, and in 1669 he drew up, at the instance of Louvois, his ...