of San Zavier, on the side fartherest from the city, and of course in direct range of the batteries of the French, which were mounted upon a small hill some half mile further out. The state prison and church were held by the Mexicans until the walls were perforated everywhere by balls, and the flying stones, knocked down at every volley from the French batteries, made the position no longer tenable. They then retreated into the plaza, nearer the heart of the city, where they threw up entrenchments. The French immediately took up their position in the church and state-prison, but that night the Mexicans opened upon them, and sent four hundred cannon balls through the two structures before morning, and the French, after a loss of some five hundred men, found the buildings too hot to hold them. Both buildings are now so riddled and shattered as to be untenable and worthless, and it is the general opinion that it will be cheaper to pull down the walls of the state-prison and rebuild from the foundation, than to attempt to repair it.
When the Mexicans saw that the fall of Puebla was unavoidable, they blew up and wholly, or partially, destroyed a large number of churches around the outskirts of the city, to prevent their being used as defences by the French, when it should be their turn to become the besiegers, and that of the French to be the besieged. The wisdom of this action was demonstrated when General Porfiero Diaz, who had made the brilliant campaign of Tehuantepec and Oaxaca, sweeping everything before him like a hurricane, arrived before Puebla while Maximilian was being besieged at Queretaro, by Escobedo. Marquez, with the imperial troops, had advanced from the city of Mexico to Apizaco, only one
