high tone, and something of the inflation of Spanish romance, suiting the character of those to whom it was directed. ♦1809. JANUARY. JUNOT TAKES THE COMMAND OF THE FRENCH.♦ At the beginning of the year Mortier received orders to move upon Calatayud with Suchet’s division. It was thought that they would be more serviceably employed in keeping that part of Aragon in awe, than in forwarding the operations of the siege. The position which they left was filled up by extending Morlot’s division, and securing its front by three redoubts. Moncey and Mortier, holding independent commands, appear to have been mutually jealous of each other; and Gazan, conceiving that his orders required him only to cover the siege, refused to make any farther attempt upon the suburb, after the severe repulse which he had sustained, strongly as the commandant of the engineers advised a second attack. The arrival of Junot to take the command did not put an end to this disunion: there were indeed plain indications, that if Buonaparte had died at this time, his generals, like Alexander’s, would have made some atonement to mankind by taking vengeance upon each other. The works, however, went on, under a heavy fire; and on the 10th eight batteries were opened against St. Joseph and the redoubt of the Pillar. Colonel Mariano de Renovales commanded the former post, a man who made himself conspicuous throughout the whole course of the war by his activity and enterprising courage. An old brick convent, ♦ST. JOSEPH’S AND THE REDOUBT OF THE PILLAR TAKEN.♦ and works faced with unburnt bricks, were soon demolished; and in the night it was found necessary to remove the heavy artillery into the town, as it could no longer be used. A brave sally was made at midnight against one of the batteries; but the adventurers were taken in flank by two guns placed at the right of the second parallel, and being exposed to a murderous fire in front, retreated with considerable loss. The next day, the convent being in ruins, and the breach practicable, an assault was made in the evening; at the same time a party of the enemy, turning the convent, effected an entrance by a bridge which the besieged had neglected to remove, and obtained possession of the ruins. The French employed three days in repairing the works and connecting them with their second parallel. It had been an easy but an important conquest; for they were now secured against the garrison on that side by the river, and by an escarp eight feet high. On the 15th they attacked the redoubt ... it was defended by the second regiment of Aragonese volunteers, and it was not till the works were reduced to ruins, and the flower of that regiment ♦ROGNIAT, 11, 14. CAVALLERO, 96.♦ had perished, that the survivors retreated into the city, and blew up the bridge. A second parallel was then opened against the town, which had now no longer any defence on this side but its feeble wall and the houses themselves.