Five hundred of the Spaniards, perished by the explosion, but none of the defenders were injured, for they, had been prepared.  Recovering from the momentary panic, the besiegers again rushed to the attack.  The battle raged.  Six hundred and seventy officers, commissioned or non-commissioned, had already fallen, more than half mortally wounded.  Four thousand royalists, horribly mutilated, lay on the ground.  It was time that the day’s work should be finished, for Maastricht was not to be carried upon that occasion.  The best and bravest of the surviving officers besought Parma to put an end to the carnage by recalling the troops; but the gladiator heart of the commander was heated, not softened, by the savage spectacle.  “Go back to the breach,” he cried, “and tell the soldiers that Alexander is coming to lead them into the city in triumph, or to perish with his comrades.”  He rushed forward with the fury which had marked him when he boarded Mustapha’s galley at Lepanto; but all the generals who were near him threw themselves upon his path, and implored him to desist from such insensate rashness.  Their expostulations would have probably been in vain, had not his confidential friend, Serbelloni, interposed with something like paternal authority, reminding him of the strict commands contained in his Majesty’s recent letters, that the Governor-General, to whom so much was entrusted, should refrain, on pain of the royal displeasure, from exposing his life like a common fighter.

Alexander reluctantly gave the signal of recal at last, and accepted the defeat.  For the future he determined to rely more upon the sapper and miner, and less upon the superiority of veterans to townsmen and rustics in open fight.  Sure to carry the city at last, according to line and rule, determined to pass the whole summer beneath the walls, rather than abandon his purpose, he calmly proceeded to complete his circumvallations.  A chain of eleven forts upon the left, and five upon the right side of the Meuse, the whole connected by a continuous wall, afforded him perfect security against interruptions, and allowed him to continue the siege at leisure.  His numerous army was well housed and amply supplied, and he had built a strong and populous city in order to destroy another.  Relief was impossible.  But a few thousand men were now required to defend Farnese’s improvised town, while the bulk of his army could be marched at any moment against an advancing foe.  A force of seven thousand, painfully collected by the Prince of Orange, moved towards the place, under command of Hohenlo and John of Nassau, but struck with wonder at what they saw, the leaders recognized the hopelessness of attempting relief.  Maestricht was surrounded by a second Maestricht.