a city protected only by a low brick wall, with peasants and townsmen for
its defenders, and few guns in condition for service, could be carried at
first assault, the French general made a vigorous attack, but found
himself driven back. He had but four or five thousand men, while the town
had fifty thousand inhabitants, the commander of the garrison being Joseph
Palafox, a man of indomitable spirit.

Lefebre, perceiving that he had been over-confident, now encamped and
awaited reinforcements, which arrived on the 29th, increasing his force to
twelve thousand men. He was recalled for service elsewhere, General
Verdier being left in command, and during the succeeding two months the
siege was vigorously prosecuted, the French being supplied with a large
siege train, with which they hotly bombarded the city.

Weak as were the walls of Saragossa, interiorly it was remarkably well
adapted for defence. The houses were strongly built, of incombustible
material, they being usually of two stories, each story vaulted and
practically fireproof. Every house had its garrison, and the massive
convents which rose like castles within the circuit of the wall were
filled with armed men. Usually when the walls of a city are taken the city
falls; but this was by no means the case with Saragossa. The loss of its
walls was but the beginning, not the end, of its defence. Each convent,
each house, formed a separate fortress. The walls were loop-holed for
musketry, ramparts were constructed of sand-bags, and beams were raised
endwise against the houses to afford shelter from shells.

It was not until August that the French, now fifteen thousand strong, were
able to force their way into the city. But to enter the city was not to
capture it. They had to fight their way from street to street and from
house to house. At length the assailants penetrated to the Cosso, a public
walk formed on the line of the old Moorish ramparts, but here their
advance was checked, the citizens defending themselves with the most
desperate and unyielding energy.

The singular feature of this defence was that the women of Saragossa took
as active a part in it as the men. The Countess Burita, a beautiful young
woman of intrepid spirit, took the lead in forming her fellow-women into
companies, at whose head were ladies of the highest rank. These,
undeterred by the hottest fire and freely braving wounds and death,
carried provisions to the combatants, removed the wounded