[285] Masséna came up from Salamanca this day to inspect the bombardment, and made (as was his wont) a rather mendacious report thereon to the Emperor, declaring that the French loss had been 12 killed and 41 wounded, whereas it had exceeded 100 [see Belmas, iii. p. 233], and that the defence of the place was seriously impaired--which it was not as yet. Four days of furious artillery engagement followed, in which the besiegers, though suffering heavily, succeeded not only in setting more than half the town on fire, but, what was more serious, in making a breach in the fausse-braye, at the projecting angle of the north side of the city, on which four of the batteries had been trained, and in injuring the inner mediaeval wall at the back of it. Believing, wrongly as it seems, that the breach was practicable, Ney sent an officer to summon the town. Herrasti replied that he was still in a position to defend himself, and ‘that after forty-nine years of service he knew the laws of war and his military duty.’ He made, however, the unusual request that he might be allowed to send a letter to Wellington, and that a suspension of arms should be granted till the return of his messenger. The Marshal, as was natural, sent a refusal, and ordered the bombardment to recommence (June 28th). Up to this moment the French engineers had been under the impression that Ciudad Rodrigo would probably surrender when it had been breached, without standing an assault. Now that they recognized that the governor intended to fight to the last, and noted that he had spent the night following the summons in clearing the ditch and repairing the damaged fausse-braye with sandbags, they resolved that the breaching batteries must be brought closer in, and the approaches pushed up to the foot of the walls. Accordingly a second parallel was opened along the front of the Little Teson, two hundred and fifty yards in advance of the first, on the night of July 1st. On the same night a column of 600 men stormed the convent of San Francisco in the suburb, a post which would have enfiladed the southern end of the new parallel in the most dangerous fashion. Having obtained this lodgement in the suburb the French set to work to conquer the whole of it, and after some stiff street-fighting stormed Santa Clara, its central stronghold. Herrasti thereupon evacuated the rest of the scattered houses, and withdrew all his troops inside the town (July 3rd).