From the heights of the walls which he had conquered, marshal Lasnes contemplated this terrific scene; and, judging that men so passionate, and so prepared, could not be prudently encountered in open battle, he resolved to proceed by the slow, but certain process of the mattock and the mine: and this was also in unison with the emperor’s instructions. Hence from the 29th of January to the 2d of February, the efforts of the French were directed to the enlargement of their lodgements on the walls; and they succeeded, after much severe fighting and several explosions, in working forward through the nearest houses; but, at the same time, they had to sustain many counter-assaults from the Spaniards; especially one, exceedingly fierce, made by a friar on the Capuchins’ convent of the Trinity. It has been already observed that the crossing of the large streets divided the town into certain small districts, or islands of houses. To gain possession of these, it was necessary not only to mine but to fight for each house. To cross the large intersecting streets, it was indispensable to construct traverses above or to work by underground galleries; because a battery raked each street, and each house was defended by a garrison that, generally speaking, had only the option of repelling the enemy in front or dying on the gibbet erected behind. But, as long as the convents and churches remained in possession of the Spaniards, the progress of the French among the islands of small houses was of little advantage to them, because the large garrisons in the greater buildings enabled the defenders not only to make continual and successful sallies, but also to countermine their enemies, whose superior skill in that kind of warfare was often frustrated by the numbers and persevering energy of the besieged. To overcome these obstacles the breaching batteries opposite the fourth front fired upon the convents of Saint Augustin and Saint Monica, and the latter was assaulted on the 31st of January. At the same time a part of the wall in another direction being thrown down by a petard, a body of the besiegers poured in and taking the main breach in rear, cleared not only the convent but several houses around it. The Spaniards undismayed immediately opened a gallery from St. Augustin and worked a mine under Saint Monica, but at the moment of its being charged the French discovered and stifled the miners.