Explore "Saragossa" by Benito Pérez Galdós on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
From that day, as memorable in the second siege as Eras in the first siege, began the great work in whose frenzy and exaltation both besiegers and besieged lived for the next month and a half. The sorties made during the first days of January were not of much importance. The French, having finished their first parallel, advanced in a zigzag towards opening their second, and worked on it with so much activity that very soon we saw our two best positions in the Mediodía, San José and the redoubt del Pilar, threatened by siege batteries, every one with a dozen cannon. I must be excused for saying that we did not cease to make trouble for them, keeping up an incessant fire, and surprising them with sudden skirmishes, but this was all. Junot, who now took the place of Moncey, carried forward the work with great diligence.
Our battalion remained in the redoubt raised at the outer end of the Huerva bridge. The radius of our fire was considerable, crossing that of San José. The batteries of Los Mártires, of the Botanical Garden, and of the Torre del Pino further within the city were less important than the two bodies holding the advanced positions, and served as auxiliaries.