Palafox published that day a proclamation in which he tried to raise the spirits of the soldiers, promising the rank of captain to the man who should bring him a hundred recruits, threatening with the penalty of death and confiscation of property the man who should fail to hasten to the defence, or should leave the lines. All this showed great distress on the part of the commanding officers. That day was memorable for the attack on Santa Mónica, which the volunteers of Huesca were defending. During the greater part of the night the French had been bombarding the building. The batteries of the orchard were no longer serviceable, and it was necessary to take away the cannon, an operation performed by our valiant men, exposed without protection to the hostile fire. This opened a breach at last; and, penetrating into the orchard, they tried to gain possession of that also, forgetting that they had twice been repulsed on previous days. But Lannes, exasperated by the extraordinary and unprecedented tenacity of the Saragossans, had given orders to reduce the convent to powder—a thing which was easier to accomplish with the cannon and howitzer than to take it by storm. At all events, after six hours of artillery fire, a large part of the eastern wall fell, and then the French showed their exultation, and, without loss of time, rushed forward to seize the position, aided by the crossfire from the Molino in the city. Seeing them coming, Villacampa, commander of the Huesca men, and Palafox, who had hurried to the point of danger, tried to close up the breach with sacks of wool and some empty musket-boxes. The French, reaching the spot, made a mad, furious assault, but, after a brief hand-to-hand struggle, they were repulsed. During the night they went on cannonading the convent.
The next day they decided to make another attack, certain that no mortal could defend that skeleton of stone and brick which every moment was crumbling to the earth. They assailed it at the door of the reception-room; but during all the morning they did not conquer a hand’s breadth of earth in the cloister.