The work of the French, therefore, consisted in spreading out from their two separate lodgements on the eastern and southern sides of the city, with the simple object of gaining ground each day and of driving the Spaniards back towards the centre of the place. On the right attack the most important objective of the besiegers was the block of monastic buildings to the north of the Palafox battery, the twin convents of San Augustin and Santa Monica, which lay along the northern side of the small wedge that they had driven into the north-eastern corner of the town. As these buildings lay on ground slightly higher than that which the French had occupied, it was difficult to attack them by means of mines. But an intense converging fire was brought to bear upon them, both from batteries outside the walls, playing across the Huerba, and by guns brought inside the captured angle of the _enceinte_. The outer walls of Santa Monica were soon a mass of ruins: nevertheless the first attack on it [January 29] was beaten off, and it was only on the next day, after twenty-four hours more of furious bombardment, that Grandjean’s men succeeded in storming, first the convent and then its church, after a furious hand-to-hand fight with the defenders. After establishing themselves in Santa Monica the French were able to capture some of the adjoining houses, and to turn their attention against its neighbour San Augustin. They ran two mines under it, and at the same time battered it heavily from the external batteries beyond the Huerba. On February I the explosion took place: it opened a breach in the east end of the convent church, and the storming party, entering by the sacristy, got possession of the choir chapels and the high altar. But the Spaniards rallied in the nave, ran a barricade of chairs and benches across it, and held their own for some time, firing down from the pulpit and the organ loft with effect. Some climbed up into the roof and picked off the French through the holes which the bombardment had left in the ceiling. For some hours this strange indoor battle raged within the spacious church. But at last the French carried the nave, and at night only the belfry remained untaken. Its little garrison pelted the French with grenades all day, and saved themselves at dusk by a sudden and unexpected dash through the enemy.