Duhesme had no battering-train, and his force of 5,900 men was insufficient to invest the whole circumference of the city of Gerona and its forts. But, like Moncey before Valencia, he was resolved to make an attempt to storm the city by escalade, or by battering in its gates. He left alone the citadel and the line of works on the hill, only sending a single battalion to demonstrate against the fort of the Capuchins. His real attack was directed against the sole point where the old _enceinte_ of the city is not fully protected by the forts, the gate of the Carmen, on the very brink of the Oña. In no very honourable spirit, he sent in one of his aides-de-camp, with a white flag, to demand the surrender of Gerona, and while that officer was conferring with the governor and the local Junta, suddenly launched his column of assault against the gate, hoping to catch the Spaniards off their guard. The attack was a failure: the heavy guns from the forts above silenced the French field-artillery which tried to batter in the gate. Then Duhesme sent forward a storming party, with artillerymen at its head bearing petards with which to blow open the entrance: but the heavy musketry-fire from the walls laid low the head of the column, and the rest swerved, and fell back to get under cover. A feeble demonstration beyond the Oña against the bastions of Santa Clara and San Francisco had not even the desired effect of distracting the attention of the defenders of the Carmen Gate. Seeing his attack foiled, Duhesme sent in at dusk a second flag of truce, inviting the Junta of Gerona to send out deputies to confer with him on certain points which he was desirous of submitting to them. The Catalans were simple enough to comply with his offer: they would have been wiser to avoid all negotiations with such an enemy. For this parley was only intended to cover a second assault. Seeing that he could not hope to batter his way into the place by means of his light field-artillery, Duhesme was preparing a great escalade under cover of the night. The point which he chose for it was the bastion of Santa Clara, on the centre of the low front of the Mercadal, beyond the Oña. He collected a quantity of ladders from the neighbouring villages, and told off for the assault the three battalions of the brigade of Schwartz.