Duhesme had resolved to avoid for the future the fruitless attempts at escalade, which had cost him so many men during his first siege of Gerona, and to proceed by the regular rules of poliorcetics. He had with him a battering-train more than sufficient to wreck the ancient walls of the city: accordingly he opened a secondary attack on the lower town on the left of the Oña, but turned the greater part of his attention to the citadel of Monjuich. If this work, which from its lofty hill commands the whole city, were once mastered, the place could not hold out for a day longer. By this arrangement the charge of the main attack fell to Reille, and Duhesme himself undertook only the demonstration against the Mercadal. The French began by establishing themselves on the lower slopes of the tableland of which Monjuich occupies the culminating point. They found shelter in three ruined towers which the garrison was too weak to occupy, and raised near them three batteries with six heavy guns and two howitzers, which battered the citadel, and also played upon certain parts of the town wall near the gate of San Pedro. The batteries in Duhesme’s section of the siege-lines consisted only of mortars and howitzers, which shelled and several times set fire to the Mercadal, but could make no attempt to open breaches in its walls. The siege-approaches of the French before Gerona were conducted with an astonishing slowness: it was not till sixteen days after they had established themselves on the slopes round Monjuich, that they began to batter it in a serious fashion [Aug. 12]. This delay was partly due to the steepness of the ground up which the guns had to be dragged, partly to the necessity for sending to Figueras for extra artillery material, which could only be brought slowly and under heavy escort to the banks of the Ter. But Duhesme’s slackness, and the want of skill displayed by his engineer officers, were responsible for the greater portion of the delay. Moreover the investment of Gerona was so badly managed, that not only did the garrison keep up a regular communication at night with the chiefs of the _somatenes_ who lay out on the hills to the west, but convoys repeatedly left and entered the town in the dark, without meeting a single French picket or patrol.