The siege began in June and was abandoned in August, in consequence of the disaster to Dupont at Bailén. In the following December four Marshals of France, Junot, Lannes, Mortier and Moncey, with eighteen thousand men, invested the city, but it was not until February of the next year that, having driven the defenders out of the Jesuit convent across the river, the French were able to establish a foothold in the outskirts of the city itself. Every one knows how the Maid of Saragossa took the place of her dead artillery lover who was killed at his gun; an episode that has since become a theme to instil the young with heroic ideals. Such was the spirit that gained for the city the proud title of _siempre heróica_. Her citizens fought from house to house, every street had barricades, and it was only that when decimated by pestilence and famine, with half the place a smoking ruin, one of the most celebrated sieges of history came to end. As in Cadiz and Salamanca, there are two Cathedrals in Saragossa, La Seo and El Pilar. The former occupies the site of a church which stood here before the Moors took possession of the place and turned it into a mosque. A year after the advent of Alfonso I., Bishop Pedro de Lebrana reconsecrated La Seo, and its walls have witnessed many historical events in the life of Aragon before the kingdom became merged into one with Castile. It was before the High Altar that her Kings were crowned, and at the font many a royal babe baptized. La Seo is constructed almost entirely of the dull brown brick with which the older part of the city is also built; the interior piers and vaulting alone being of stone. On the north-east wall, which faces the gloomy palace of the archbishop, there is still extant the most elaborate arrangement of brick work, inlaid with coloured glazed tiles, blue, green, red, white and yellow, forming a very harmonious and attractive scheme. From the centre of the north-west façade, which is extremely ugly, rises a well-proportioned tower arranged in four stages, with Corinthian columns, the top of which is surmounted by a red tiled cupola and spire. The colour of this took my fancy, it "sang out" so much against the blue of the sky--a contrast I thought worthy of an illustration.