Meanwhile Palafox crossing the Ebro at Pina, joined Versage at Belchite, and having collected seven or eight thousand men, and four pieces of artillery, gained the Xalon in rear of the French; from thence he proposed to advance through Epila and endeavour to relieve Zaragoza by a battle. His officers, struck with the imprudence of this measure, resisted his authority, and prepared to retire to Valencia. Palafox, ignorant of war, and probably awed by Tio Jorge, expressed his determination to fight, saying, with an imposing air, “that those who feared danger might retire.” Touched with shame, all agreed to follow him to Epila; and he advanced: but two French regiments, detached by Lefebre, met him on the march, and a combat commencing at nine in the evening, the Spaniards were unable to form any order of battle, and, notwithstanding their superior numbers, were defeated with the loss of three thousand men. Palafox, who did not display that firmness in danger which his speech promised, must have fled early, as he reached Calatayud in the night, although many of his troops arrived there unbroken the next morning. After this disaster, Palafox, leaving Versage at Calatayud to make fresh levies, returned himself, with all the beaten troops that he could collect, to Belchite, and from thence regained Zaragoza on the 2d of July. Meanwhile Lefebre had taken the Monte Torrero by assault on the 27th of June. [Sidenote: S. Journal of Lefebre’s Operations. MSS.] The 29th or 30th, general Verdier arrived on the Huerba with a division of infantry, and a large train of battering artillery; and the besiegers being now nearly twelve thousand strong, attacked the convents of St. Joseph and the Capuchins on the same day that Palafox returned; the first assault on St. Joseph’s failed, the second succeeded; but the Capuchins, after some fighting, was set fire to by the Spaniards and abandoned. All this time the suburb was left open and free for the besieged. But Napoleon blamed this mode of attack, and sent orders to throw a bridge across the Ebro,--to press the siege on the left bank,--and to profit of the previous success by raising a breaching battery in the convent of St. Joseph. A bridge was accordingly constructed at St. Lambert, two hundred yards above the town, and two attacks were carried on at the same time. [Sidenote: Napoleon’s Notes, Appendix, No. 2.]