The columns of attack had to pass over an open space of more than a hundred yards before they could reach the foot of the breach; and when within twenty yards of it, the hedge of aloes obliged them to turn to the right, and left, under a terrible fire of musketry and of grape, which the Spaniards, who were crowding on the breach with apparent desperation, poured unceasingly upon them. The destruction was great, the head of the French column got into confusion, gave back, and was beginning to fly, when the reserves rushed up, and a great many officers coming forward in a body, renewed the attack. At that moment one Bianchini, an Italian soldier, who had obtained leave to join the column as a volunteer, and whose white clothes, amidst the blue uniforms of the French, gave him a supernatural appearance, went forth alone from the ranks, and gliding silently and sternly up the breach, notwithstanding many wounds reached the top, and there fell dead. Then the multitude bounded forward with a shout, the first line of the Spaniards fled, and the ramparts were darkened by the following masses of the French. Meanwhile Montmarie’s sappers cut away the palisades at Rosario, and his light troops finding a rope hanging from the wall, mounted by it, at the moment when the assailants at the breach broke the Spanish reserves with one shock, and poured into the town like a devastating torrent. At the Rambla a momentary stand was indeed made, but the impulse of victory was too strong to be longer resisted, and a dreadful scene of slaughter and violence ensued. Citizens and soldiers, maddened with fear, rushed out in crowds by the Barcelona gate, while others, throwing themselves over the ramparts, made for the landing-places within the Milagro; but that way also had been intercepted by general Rogniat with his sappers, and then numbers throwing themselves down the steep rocks were dashed to pieces, while they who gained the shore were still exposed to the sword of the enemy. Those that went out by the Barcelona gate were met by Harispe’s men, and some being killed, the rest, three thousand in number, were made prisoners. But within the town all was horror; fire had been set to many houses, Gonzales, fighting manfully, was killed, Contreras, wounded with the stroke of a bayonet, was only saved by a French officer; and though the hospitals were respected by the soldiers, in every other part their fury was unbounded. When the assault first commenced, the ship-launches had come close into the Milagro, and now saved some of the fugitives, but their guns swept the open space beyond, killing friends and enemies, as, mixed together, they rushed to the shore; and the French dragoons, passing through the flaming streets at a trot, rode upon the fugitives, sabring those who had outstripped the infantry. In every quarter there was great rage and cruelty, and although most of the women and children had, during the siege, been removed from Taragona by