CAVALIER

In Fortification, a sort of interior bastion, several feet more elevated than the principal bastion of the fortre in which it is formed. The use of the cavalier is twofold: it serves either to defilade the works from the fire of an enemy on an adjacent height, or to command the trenches of the besiegers. Cavaliers are sometimes constructed in the gorges, or on the middle of the curtain, and their form is the semicircular; but when they are within the bastion they are now built with straight faces and flanks parallel to those of the work in which they are placed. French cavaliers are works raised by the besiegers on the glacis of a fortre , for the purpose of enabling them to direct a fire of musketry into the covered way. Ca'valier (derived probably from the Latin word cab all us, a pack-horse), was used originally in a general sense for a horse soldier; but the term has acquired historical importance from its having been applied to the adherents of Charles I. in contradistinction to the Round heads (quod vide), the supporters of the parliament. [s. 216]