The escalade having come to this disappointing conclusion, the Marshal saw that the siege of Saguntum would be anything but a quick business. It would be necessary to bring up the siege-train to the front: orders were sent back to Ficatier to start it at once from Tortosa; but it had to batter and take Oropesa before it could even reach Murviedro. There were some weeks of delay before him, and meanwhile Blake might at last begin to show some signs of life. Suchet therefore disposed his army so as to provide both a blockading force and a covering force, to see that the blockade was not interfered with from without. It being evident that many days would elapse before the siege artillery arrived, the French engineer officers got leave to employ many detachments in preparing roads fit to bear heavy guns up the western slopes of the hill of Saguntum, from which alone the regular attack on the fortress could be conducted. Several emplacements for batteries were also chosen, and work upon them was begun. From September 23rd, the day of Suchet’s arrival before Saguntum, down to October 16, when the heavy guns at last arrived, the French army was practically ‘marking time’: the idea which the Emperor had conceived, and which his lieutenant had adopted, that Valencia could be conquered by a sudden rush, had been proved false. Apparently Suchet had gained no more by his rapid advance to the foot of the hill of Saguntum than he would have obtained by marching in more leisurely fashion, with his siege artillery in company, and taking Oropesa on the way. The reduction of that place indeed was (as it turned out) only a single day’s task for heavy guns: and if the Marshal had captured it on his march, he might have presented himself before Saguntum with his siege-train, and have begun an active attack on that fortress, some weeks before he was actually able to get to serious work. In fact he might have been battering Saguntum on October 1, instead of having to wait till October 16th. But this is ‘wisdom after the event’: Napoleon thought that Valencia could be ‘rushed,’ and Suchet was bound to make the experiment that his master ordered.