Fifteen hundred grenadiers, destined for the attack, were assembled under Palombini in the trenches; a second column was formed to support the storming troops, and to repel any sally from the upper town; and while the arrangements were in progress, the French guns thundered incessantly, and the shouts of the infantry, impatient for the signal, were heard between the salvos, redoubling as the shattered walls gave way. At last Harispe’s division began to menace the ramparts on the side of Barcelona, to distract the attention of the Spaniards, and then Suchet exhorting the soldiers to act vigorously, gave the signal and let them loose while it was still day. In an instant the breaches were crowned, and the assailants swarmed on the bastions, the ramparts, and the fort Royal; the Spaniards, without a leader, were thrown into confusion, and falling in heaps broke and fled towards the port, towards the mole, and towards the upper town, and a reserve stationed under the walls of the latter was overthrown with the same shock. Then some of the fugitives, running towards the mole, were saved by the English launches, others escaped into the upper town, a few were made prisoners, and the rest were slaughtered. At eight o’clock the lower town was in the possession of the enemy. Fifteen hundred bodies, many of whom were inhabitants, lay stretched upon the place, and the mercantile magazines of the port being set on fire, the flames finished what the sword had begun. When the carnage ceased, the troops were rallied, working parties were set to labour; and ere the confusion in the upper town had subsided, the besiegers were again hidden in their trenches and burrowing forward to the walls of the upper town. The front before them consisted of four bastions with curtains, but without a ditch. The bastion of St. Paul was opposite their left, that of St. John opposite their centre, that of Jesus opposite their right; but the bastion of Cervantes, which covered the principal landing place of the Milagro, although on the same front of defence, was somewhat retired and not included within the attack. A hollow piece of ground, serving as a trench, had enabled the French to establish their left in a side bastion of the wall, connecting the upper with the lower town; and their right was strongly protected by some houses lining the road, for between the two parts of the city there were four hundred yards of open garden-ground interspersed with single houses. A battery was constructed to play upon the landing places of the Milagro, two mortars which were on the hill of the fort Loretto, concurred in this object, and the light troops were pushed close up to the wall; but at daylight the ships of war passed the port delivering their broadsides in succession, Contreras then showed the heads of columns as if for a sally, and the French skirmishers retired; whereupon the Spanish general, contented with having thus cleared his front, re-entered the place.