The French had lost nearly 2,000 men in the struggle: the engineer Belmas gives the total as 462 killed and 1,505 wounded[131], more than a fifth of the troops which had actually been engaged in the assault. Among the Saragossans, who before the street-fighting began had been subjected to a severe bombardment for many hours, the casualties must have been nearly as great. But they could spare combatants more easily than their enemies: indeed they had more men than muskets, and as each defender fell there was a rush of the unarmed to get possession of his weapon. [131] Arteche accuses Belmas of giving only 505 wounded, remarking that Verdier stated the higher number of 900. But my edition of Belmas (Paris, 1836) distinctly says ‘quinze cent cinq blessés’ (ii. 64). Napier gives no figures at all: Thiers, understating French losses in his usual style, speaks of 300 dead and 900 wounded. During the night of August 4-5 both sides, fatigued though they were, set to work to cover themselves with barricades and works constructed with the débris of ruined houses. In the morning both French and Spaniards had rough but continuous lines of defence, those of the latter circling round those of the former, with nothing but the width of a narrow street between them. Wherever there was anything approaching an open space cannon had been brought up to sweep it. Where the houses still stood firm, communications had been made between them by breaking holes through the party walls. In the streets the corpses of both sides lay thick, for under the deadly cross-fire no one dared venture out to remove them: in a day or two the sanitary conditions would be horrible.