The loss which they had sustained in this assault thoroughly discouraged the besiegers; and when St. Cyr, for the sake of proving to the Spaniards that he was not to be outdone by them in perseverance, would have made a second effort, the officers whom he consulted were unanimously of opinion that it ought not again to be attempted. The Marshal, however unwilling to make an acknowledgement so honourable to the people against whom he was employed, was compelled then to admit that Gerona could only be reduced by famine, and to determine upon pursuing that course, which of all others is the most wearying to the soldiers, and the most painful to a general who has not extinguished in himself all sense of humanity. Every day now added to the distress of the besieged. Their flour was exhausted; wheat they had still in store, but men are so much the slaves of habit, that it was considered as one great evil of the siege, that they had no means of grinding it; two horse-mills, which had been erected, were of such clumsy construction, that they did not perform half the needful work, and the Geronans, rather than prepare the unground corn in any way to which they had not been accustomed, submitted to the labour of grinding it between two stones, or pounding it in the shell of a bomb with a cannon-ball. For want of other animal food, mules and horses were slaughtered for the hospital and for the shambles; a list was made of all within the city, and they were taken by lot. Fuel was exceedingly scarce, yet the heaps which were placed in cressets at the corners of the principal streets, to illuminate them in case of danger, remained untouched, and not a billet was taken from them during the whole siege. The summer fever became more prevalent; the bodies of the sufferers were frequently covered with a minute eruption, which was usually a fatal symptom: fluxes also began to prevail[5]. ♦O’DONNELL ENTERS THE CITY.♦