The absolute retreat of Augereau, was now fully ascertained, yet the victory of Margalef, and the apathy of the Valencians, encouraged Suchet to commence the siege in form. The prisoners were sent to France by the way of Jaca; the battering train was brought up from Monzon, and all the other necessary preparations being completed, the Spanish outposts were driven within the walls between the 26th and 27th. The following night, under the direction of general Haxo, ground was broken three hundred yards from the bastions of the Carmen and Magdalen; the Spaniards threw some fire-balls, and opened a few guns, but without interrupting the workmen, and when day broke, the besiegers were well covered in the trenches. In the night of the 30th the first parallel was completed. Breaching and counter-batteries were commenced, six sixteen-pounders were destined to batter the left face of the Carmen, four long twelve-pounders, to ruin the defences of the Magdalen, and four mortars of eight inches to throw shells into the citadel. The weather was rainy and the labour heavy, yet the works advanced rapidly, and on the 2d of May, a fourth battery, armed with two mortars and two sixteen-pounders, was raised against the Carmen. Meanwhile the Spanish musqueteers, incommoded the trenches from the left bank of the Segre, which obliged the French to contract the circle of investment on that side. In the evening of the 4th of May, six hundred Spaniards, sallying from the Carmen, carried the fourth battery and all the left of the trenches, while another body, coming from the Magdalen, menaced the right of the French works. The French guards held the latter in check, and the reserves finally drove the former back into the town, but after this attack, a ditch and rampart, to serve as a place of arms, was carried from the battery which had been taken, down to the river, and as the light troops still continued to ply the trenches from the other side of the Segre, ground was broken there, close to the water, and a battery of two guns was constructed to answer six Spanish field-pieces, posted on the bridge itself. The parallel of the main attack was also extended on the right, embracing a part of the northern front of the citadel, and two mortars were placed at this extremity.