“It has been already observed that the crossing of the large streets divided the town into certain small districts or islands of houses. To gain possession of these, it was necessary not only to mine but to fight for each house. To cross the large intersecting streets it was indispensable to construct traverses above or to work by underground galleries, because a battery raked each street, and each house was defended by a garrison that, generally speaking, had only the option of repelling the enemy in front, or dying on the gibbet erected behind. But as long as the convents and churches remained in possession of the Spaniards, the progress of the French among the islands of small houses was of little advantage to them, because the large garrisons in the greater buildings enabled the defenders not only to make continual and successful sallies, but also to countermine their enemies, whose superior skill in that kind of warfare was often frustrated by the numbers and persevering energy of the besieged. * * * “The experience of these attacks[34] induced a change in the mode of fighting on both sides. Hitherto the play of the French mines had reduced the houses to ruins, and thus the soldiers were exposed completely to the fire from the next Spanish posts. The engineers therefore diminished the quantity of powder, that the interior only might fall, and the outward walls stand, and this method was found successful. Hereupon the Spaniards, with ready ingenuity, saturated the timbers and planks of the houses with rosin and pitch, and setting fire to those which could no longer be maintained, interposed a burning barrier which often delayed the assailants for two days, and always prevented them from pushing their successes during the confusion that necessarily followed the bursting of the mines. The fighting was however incessant, a constant bombardment, the explosion of mines, the crash of falling buildings, clamorous shouts, and the continued echo of musketry deafened the ear, while volumes of smoke and dust clouded the atmosphere, and lowered continually over the heads of the combatants, as hour by hour the French with a terrible perseverance pushed forwards their approaches to the heart of the miserable but glorious city.