Contreras, thus disappointed on all sides, and without dependence on Campo Verde, resolved, if the French delayed the storm until the 29th, to make way by a sally on the Barcelona road, and so join the army in the field; meanwhile to stand the assault if fortune so willed it. And he had good reason for his resolution, for the ground in front of the walls was high and narrow; and although there was neither ditch nor covered way, a thick hedge of aloe trees, no small obstacle to troops, grew at the foot of the rampart, which was also cut off from the town, and from the side works, by an internal ditch and retrenchment. Behind the rampart the houses of the great street called the Rambla, were prepared for defence, furnishing a second line of resistance; and although the cuts on the flanks hindered the making of sallies in force, which at such a period was a good mode of defence, the reduced state of the French army gave reason to believe that eight thousand brave men could resist it effectually. The 28th a general plan for breaking out on the Barcelona side, the co-operation of the fleet, and a combined attack of the Spanish army, was arranged; and Eroles embarked for the purpose of re-landing at Taragona, to take the leading of the troops destined to sally forth on the 29th. The French general had however completed his batteries on the night of the 27th, and in the morning of the 28th they opened with a crashing effect. One magazine blew up in the bastion of Cervantes; all the guns in that of San Paulo were dismounted; the wall fell away in huge fragments before the stroke of the batteries, and from the Olivo, and from all the old French trenches, the guns and mortars showered bullets and shells into the place. This fire was returned from many Spanish pieces, still in good condition, and the shoulders of the French batteries were beaten down; yet their gunners, eager for the last act of the siege, stood to their work uncovered, the musketry rattled round the ramparts, the men on both sides crowded to the front, and while opprobrious words and mutual defiance passed between them, the generals, almost within hearing of each other, exhorted the soldiers to fight with the vigour that the crisis demanded. STORMING OF THE UPPER TOWN. [Sidenote: Suchet.] [Sidenote: Rogniat.] [Sidenote: Vacani.] [Sidenote: Codrington’s papers. MSS.] At five o’clock in the evening the French fire suddenly ceased, and fifteen hundred men led by general Habert passing out from the parallel, went at full speed up against the breach; twelve hundred under general Ficatier followed in support, general Montmarie led a brigade round the left, to the bastion of Rosario, with a view to break the gates there during the assault, and thus penetrating, to turn the interior defence of the Rambla. Harispe took post on the Barcelona road, to cut off the retreat of the garrison.