room with fearful echoes. They used their artillery in the street, and we did also. Often they tried to get possession of our pieces by sudden hand-to-hand struggles; but they lost many men without ever succeeding.
Alarmed on seeing that the force used at one time to gain a battle was not now sufficient to gain two yards of a street, they refused to fight, and their officers drove them forward, beating their laziness out of them with cudgels. On our side such measures were not necessary; persuasion was enough. The priests, without neglecting the dying, attended to everything. If they saw a weakening anywhere, they would hasten to tell the officers.
In one of the trenches in the street, a woman, bravest of all, Manuela Sancho, after having fired with a gun, began serving cannon number eight. She remained unhurt all day, encouraging all with brave words—an example to the men. It was perhaps three o’clock when she fell, wounded in the leg, and during a long time was supposed to be dead, because the hemorrhage made her seem lifeless; she looked like a corpse. Later, seeing that she breathed, we carried her to the rear, and she was restored, and had such good health afterwards that many years later I had the pleasure of seeing her still alive.
History has not forgotten that brave young Maid of Saragossa. The Calle de Pabostre, whose poor houses are more eloquent than the pages of a book, now bears the name of Manuela Sancho.
A little after three o’clock, a tremendous loud explosion shook the houses which the French had disputed with us in such a bloody manner during the morning. Amid the dust, and the smoke thicker than dust, we saw walls and roofs falling in a thousand pieces, with a noise of which I can give no idea. The French had begun to employ mines, in order to gain that which they could in no other way wrench from the hands of the sons of Aragón. They opened galleries; they charged the mines; then the men folded their arms, waiting for the powder to do it all.