Madrid was for many reasons incapable of defence. First, there were no bulwarks; secondly, the houses, although strong and well built, were not like many Spanish towns, fire proof; thirdly, there were no outworks, and the heights on which the French cavalry were posted, the palace, and the Retiro, completely commanded the city; fourthly, the perfectly open country around would have enabled the French cavalry to discover and cut off all convoys, and no precaution had been taken to provide subsistence for the hundred and fifty thousand people contained within the circuit of the place. [Sidenote: Appendix, No. 3.] The desire of the central junta, that this metropolis should risk the horrors of a storm, was equally silly and barbarous. Their own criminal apathy had deprived Madrid of the power of procrastinating its defence until relieved from without, and there was no sort of analogy between the situation of Zaragoza and this capital. Napoleon knew this well; he was not a man to plunge headlong into the streets of a great city, among an armed and excited population; he knew that address in negotiation, a little patience, and a judicious employment of artillery, would soon reduce the most outrageous to submission, and he had no wish to destroy the capital of his brother’s kingdom. [Sidenote: Fourteenth Bulletin.] In the evening the infantry and artillery arrived; they were posted at the most favourable points; the night was clear and bright, the French camp was silent and watchful; but the noise of tumult was heard from every quarter of the city, as if some mighty beast was struggling and howling in the toils. At midnight a second summons was sent through the medium of a prisoner. The captain-general Castellar attempted to gain time by an equivocal reply, but he failed in his object. The French light troops then stormed some houses, and one battery of thirty guns opened against the Retiro, while another threw shells from the opposite quarter, to distract the attention of the inhabitants. The Retiro, situated on a rising ground, was connected with a range of buildings erected on the same side of the Prado, a public walk which nearly encircled the town. Some of the principal streets opened into the Prado nearly opposite to those buildings. In the morning a practicable breach being made in the Retiro wall, the difference between military courage and ferocity became apparent, for Villatte’s division breaking in easily, routed the garrison, and pursuing its success, seized the public buildings above spoken of, crossed the Prado, gained the barriers erected at the entrance of the streets, and took possession of the immense palace of the duke of Medina Celi, which was in itself the key to the city on that side. This vigorous commencement created great terror, and the town was summoned for the third time.