The second attempt on Zaragoza began in December, 1808. In the interval between this and the first attack the defences had been greatly strengthened, and a large supply of arms procured. As the French columns advanced towards the city there was presented a spectacle not often witnessed by one doomed to a siege. The entire population, men, women and children, were engaged in the work of preparing for resistance. None left the walls, but on the contrary the peasantry of the surrounding country rushed within them to share in the perilous defence. By the time the French took their position around the city, it had within it fifty thousand defenders, the most of them undisciplined and uninured to arms, yet animated with the spirit of their leader’s reply to Lefebvre’s demand of surrender. The French force consisted of two army corps of fifty thousand men, commanded by Marshals Moncey and Montier, with all the necessary artillery and appliances for a siege. For fifty days after the French artillery began to play upon the city the conflict between the besieged and the besiegers was incessant. In that time, thirty-three thousand cannon shot, and sixteen thousand bombs had been hurled against the place. When a breach was made in the wall, immediately and under the terrific fire of the enemy it was closed up with sand bags. If at any point an entry was made within them by the besiegers, the stone houses became citadels for the besieged. If the defenders were driven from a room, a stand was made in the next one. Women and children shared in the labors and the perils of the fight. As a gunner fell at the feet of his wife, stricken down by a cannon shot, she promptly took his place at the gun. Napoleon, dissatisfied with the slow progress made by Moncey and Montier towards a reduction of the place, sent Junot to take the command. Becoming dissatisfied with him, he sent Lannes to bring the operations to a close. Pestilence, too, came to his aid as well as additional forces sent by the Emperor. At last Palafox was confined to his bed with the prevailing epidemic. The French soldiers were at the same time depressed by the fierce and uninterrupted conflict. “Scarce a fourth of the town is won,” said one of them, “and we are already exhausted. We shall all perish amongst these ruins, which will become our own tombs, before we can force the last of these fanatics from the last of their dens.” With the assailants thus depressed, and the besieged deprived of the presence and encouragement of their leader, besides the havoc of pestilence, a favorable capitulation was accepted by Marshal Lannes. The regular troops marched out of the walls with the honors of war, and were sent as prisoners into France, each soldier retaining his knapsack, the officers their horses and side arms. The peasants were dismissed, and private property was respected. Fifty thousand human beings perished during the siege, all, except six thousand, from pestilence.