Three separate attacks were arranged, besides minor ones merely to distract attention, all to begin at ten p.m. The third division, Picton's, was to cross the rivulet on the east side and scale the castle walls; the fifth was to attack the west face of the town; to the fourth and light divisions was assigned the frightful task of storming the breaches. A fireball thrown by the French however disclosed to them the third division ready formed and awaiting the signal: the assault was consequently begun half-an-hour sooner on the east and south-east, and the perfect concert with the other distant attacks was lost. After one failure, the third division succeeded in scaling the castle and driving the French out of it, but were unable for some time to advance any further. The assault on the breaches was one of the most terrible scenes on record. Nothing could exceed the determination of the stormers, but the French had made preparations for defence which were simply insuperable. "Now a multitude bounded up the great breach as if driven by a whirlwind, but across the top glittered a range of sword-blades, sharp-pointed, keen-edged on both sides, and firmly fixed in ponderous beams, which were chained together and set deep in the ruins; and for ten feet in front, the ascent was covered with loose planks, studded with sharp iron points, on which the feet of the foremost being set the planks moved, and the unhappy soldiers, falling forward on the spikes, rolled down upon the ranks behind. Then the Frenchmen, shouting at the success of their stratagem, and leaping forward, plied their shot with terrible rapidity, for every man had several muskets; and each musket in addition to its ordinary charge contained a small cylinder of wood stuck full of leaden slugs which scattered like hail when they were discharged. "Again the assailants rushed up the breaches, and again the sword-blades, immovable and impassable, stopped their charge, and the hissing shells and thundering powder-barrels exploded unceasingly. Hundreds of men had fallen, and hundreds more were dropping, but still the heroic officers called aloud for new trials, and sometimes followed by many, sometimes by a few, ascended the ruins; and so furious were the men themselves, that in one of these charges, the rear strove to push the foremost on to the sword-blades, willing even to make a bridge of their writhing bodies, but the others frustrated the attempt by dropping down; and men fell so fast from the shot, that it was hard to know who went down voluntarily, who were stricken, and many stooped unhurt that never rose again. Vain also would it have been to break through the sword-blades, for the trench and parapet behind the breach were finished, and the assailants, crowded into even a narrower space than the ditch was, would still have been separated from their enemies, and the slaughter would have continued.