[128] The story sounds theatrical, but is vouched for by good authorities, Vaughan and Palafox himself, who chose the words for the type of the reverse of the medal that was issued to the defenders of Saragossa (see Arteche, ii. 394).
All through the afternoon of the fourth of August, the French slowly pushed their way up the streets which lead northward towards the Coso, the main thoroughfare of Saragossa. They could only get forward by storming each house, and turning each barricade that offered resistance, so that their progress was very slow. While inflicting terrible losses on the Spaniards, they were also suffering very heavily themselves. But they drove a broad wedge into the city, till finally they reached and crossed the Coso, halfway between the southern wall and the river. In the streets beyond the Coso their impetus seemed to have exhausted itself: many of the men were too tired to press forward any longer; others turned aside to plunder the churches and the better sort of houses[129]. Verdier tried to cut his way to the great bridge, so as to divide the defenders into two separate bodies, and was so far successful that many of the Spaniards began to troop off across the river into the suburb of San Lazaro. But he himself was wounded, his main column lost its way in the narrow side-streets, and the attack died down.
[129] Napier maintains (i. 45) that the city was saved only because the French fell to pillaging, a contention which seems very unjust to the Saragossans.
In the late afternoon there was almost a suspension of hostilities, and the firing slackened for a space. But at last the Aragonese, encouraged by the exhaustion of their enemies, began to resume the offensive. The fugitives who had crossed to the northern side of the Ebro were hustled together and driven back by their leaders, while a loaded gun was placed on the bridge to prevent their return. The garrison of the eastern front, which had not been seriously attacked, sent all the reinforcements that it could spare into the centre of the town. At dusk masses of Spaniards debouched from the neighbourhood of the two cathedrals, and began to assail the positions held by the French beyond the line of the Coso. The first charge into the open street is recorded to have been led by a monk[130] and sixteen peasants, every one of whom were killed or wounded; but endless reinforcements poured out of every lane, and the exhausted French began to lose ground. The fighting was of that deadly sort in which the question has to be settled, whether the defenders of the houses in a street can shoot down their assailants, exposed in the roadway, before the latter can burst into each separate dwelling and exterminate its garrison in detail. Often the French held the upper stories long after the Spaniards had seized the ground floor, and the staircases had to be stormed one after the other. It was natural that in such struggles the defenders should receive no quarter. Though the fight raged with many variations of fortune in all the central parts of the city, there was after a time no doubt that the Aragonese were gaining ground. The French detachments which had penetrated furthest into the place were gradually cut off and exterminated; the main bodies of the columns drew back and strengthened themselves in two large stone buildings, the convents of San Francisco and San Diego. At nightfall they retained only a wedge-like section of the city, whose apex near San Francisco just touched the southern side of the Coso, while its base was formed by the line of wall between the gates of Santa Engracia and the Carmen.