The second stage of the siege work, the attack on the actual _enceinte_ of Saragossa, now began. The two points on which it was directed were the Santa Engracia battery--the southern salient of the town--and the extreme south-eastern angle of the place, where lay the Palafox Battery and the smaller work generally known as the battery of the Oil Mill (Molino de Aceite). The former was less than 200 yards from the Pillar fort, the latter not more than 100 from San José, but between them ran the deep bed of the Huerba. From the twelfth to the seventeenth the French were busily engaged in throwing up batteries in the line of their third parallel, and on the morning of the last-named day no less than nine were ready. Five opened on Santa Engracia, four on the Palafox battery: at both points they soon began to do extensive damage, for here the walls had not been entirely reconstructed (as on the western front of the city), but only patched up and strengthened with earthworks at intervals. The masonry of the convent of Santa Engracia suffered most, and began to fall in large patches. Palafox saw that the _enceinte_ would be pierced ere long, and that street-fighting would be the next stage of the siege. Accordingly he set the whole civil population to work on constructing barricades across the streets and lanes of the south-eastern part of the city, in the rear of the threatened points, and turned every block of houses into an independent fort by building up all the doorways and windows facing towards the enemy. The spirits of the garrison were still high, and the Captain-General had done his best to keep them up by issuing gazettes containing very roseate accounts of the state of affairs in the outer world. His communication with the open country was not completely cut, for thrice he had been able to send boats down the Ebro, which took their chance of running past the French batteries at night, and always succeeded. One of these boats had carried the Captain-General’s younger brother, Francisco Palafox, who had orders to appeal to the Catalans for help, and to raise the peasants of Lower Aragon. Occasional messengers also got in from without: one arrived on January 16 from Catalonia, with promises of aid from the Marquis of Lazan, who proposed to return from Gerona with his division, in order to fall upon the rear of the besiegers. Palafox not only let this be known, but published in his Official Gazette some utterly unfounded rumours, which the courier had brought. Reding, it was said, had beaten St. Cyr in the open field: the Duke of Infantado was marching from Cuenca on Aragon with 20,000 men. Sir John Moore had turned to bay on the pursuing forces of the Emperor, and had defeated them at a battle in Galicia in which Marshal Ney had been killed[129]. To celebrate this glorious news the church bells were set ringing, the artillery fired a general salute, and military music paraded the town.