text:  Elated by the hope of speedy triumph the Turks now ran their approaches so close to the bastion of St Andrew which was held by the Maltese knights and militia that the muzzles of the muskets almost touched each other; and the vizir wrote to the Sultan that they had only three yards more of ground to win when at this critical moment the spirits of the besieged were revived by the arrival early in December of the Duc de la Feuillade and the Count de St Pol with a gallant band of 600 volunteers many of them of the best families of France