PROCEEDINGS IN FRANCE. THE DUC D’ANGOULEME GOES TO LORD WELLINGTON’S ARMY. LERIDA, MEQUINENZA, AND MONZON RECOVERED BY STRATAGEM. PASSAGE OF THE ADOUR. BATTLE OF ORTHES. THE ALLIES RECEIVED AT BOURDEAUX. BATTLE OF TOULOUSE. SORTIE FROM BAYONNE. RESTORATION OF FERDINAND. CONCLUSION.

Buonaparte had returned to France breathing vengeance. He sent before him two-and-twenty standards taken in the course of his German campaign; and he announced to his Council of State, in troubled and passionate language, the extent of his danger, and his determination of opposing and overcoming it by the most ♦Buonaparte’s speech to his council.♦ violent efforts. “Wellington,” said he, “is in the south, the Russians threaten the northern frontier, Austria the south-eastern, ... yet, shame to speak it, the nation has not risen in mass to repel them! Every ally has abandoned me: the Bavarians have betrayed me!... Peace? no peace, till Munich is in flames! I demand of you 300,000 men; I will form a camp at Bourdeaux of 100,000, another at Lyons, a third at Metz: with the remnant of my former levies, I shall have 1,000,000 of men in arms. But it is men whom I demand, full-grown men; not these miserable striplings who choke my hospitals with sick, and my highways with their carcases.... Give up Holland? rather let it sink into the sea! Peace, it seems, is talked of, when all around ought to re-echo with the cry of war!”

Accordingly the obsequious senate placed, in official form and phrase, 300,000 conscripts at the disposal of the minister of war: they were to be taken from the men who had been liable to the conscription in former years, as far back as 1806, with an exception however in favour of those who should have been married prior to the publication of this decree; half this number were immediately to take the field, the others to be held in reserve, and brought forward in case the eastern frontier should be invaded. Comte Dejean, who ♦Comte Dejean.♦ addressed the senate upon this measure, said that painful as it was thus to call upon classes who had formerly been free from the conscription, circumstances now required such a measure: by this means men would be ranged under the French eagles, who united strength with courage, and could support the fatigues of war; while the younger conscripts would have time in garrisons and in armies of reserve to acquire vigour for seconding the sentiments which inspired them. “The cry of alarm,” said Regnaud de S. Jean d’Angely, ♦Regnaud de S. Jean d’Angely.♦ “and of succour, sent forth by our sons and brethren in arms, still gloriously combating upon the banks of the Rhine, has resounded upon the Seine and the Rhone, the Doubs and the Gironde, the Moselle and the Loire, the mountains of Jura and of the Vosges, the Alps and the Pyrenees. All true Frenchmen are already prepared to meet the wants of their country, ... to meet the dangers and sacrifices which must prevent other dangers and sacrifices far more frightful, both for their extent and for the humiliation which must accompany them. If the coalesced armies could penetrate beyond the Pyrenees, the Alps, or the Rhine, then the day of peace could not shine upon France; there could be no peace till we should repulse the enemy, and drive him far from our territory. Noble sons of our dear France! generous defenders of our glorious country! you, who close the entrance of France against the English, the Russians, and their allies, you shall not be left without support in the holy and honourable struggle to which you have devoted yourselves. A little while, and numerous battalions of men, mighty in strength and in courage, will come to aid you in again seizing upon victory, and in delivering the French soil.”

“Your Majesty,” said Comte Lacepède, “who knows better than any one the wants and the sentiments of your subjects, know that we desire peace. But all the nations of the continent are in greater need of it than we are; and if, notwithstanding the wishes and interest of more than 150 millions of souls, our enemies should think of presenting to us a sort of capitulation, their expectations will be deceived; the French people show by their devotement and their sacrifices that no nation ever better understood their duties toward their country, their honour, and their sovereign.” To this Buonaparte made answer, ... “It is but a year since all Europe was with us; all Europe marches against us now: this is because the opinion of the world is directed by France or by England. We should have every thing to fear, were it not for the energy and the power of the nation. Posterity will say that if great and critical circumstances offered themselves, they were not superior to France and to me.” His heart was hardened, or he might now have made peace upon terms which would speedily have enabled him again to disturb the world; but his spirit was unbroken; and his abilities were never at any time so signally displayed, as in making head against the dangers which were about to beset him on all sides. It was no longer possible to keep the people in ignorance of the real state of things: the press, which hitherto under his tyranny had been employed in deceiving them, was made use of now to excite them, by declaring the whole truth as respected the danger, but suppressing it upon all other points: the allies were charged with breach of faith and inordinate ambition, they were represented as all seeking their own aggrandizement; and the Emperor Napoleon as struggling alone against them, for the honour and the interests ♦Buonaparte’s speech to the Legislative Assembly.♦ of France. He himself addressed the legislature to the same effect, ... “Brilliant victories,” said he, “have illustrified the French arms in this campaign; unexampled defections have rendered those victories useless. Every thing has turned against us. France itself would be in danger were it not for the energy and unanimity of the French. I have never been seduced by prosperity; adversity will find me superior to its attacks. Often have I given peace to nations when they had lost all.... From part of my conquests I have erected thrones for kings who have abandoned me. I had conceived and executed great designs for the prosperity and happiness of the world. A monarch and a father, I know what peace adds to the security of thrones and of families. Negotiations have been set on foot. I hoped that the congress would by this time have met; but delays, which are not attributable to France, have deferred the moment which is called for by the wishes of the world.” When Buonaparte said this, he had no hope of peace, no desire for it, no intention of making any such concessions as would render it possible.

As yet none of the other allied armies had passed the frontier; but Lord Wellington was established in France, where, taking into consideration the necessity of fixing the bases upon which the trade with the ports of French Navarre to the south of the Adour should be regulated, he published a proclamation, declaring that those ports were ♦Dec. 18.♦ open to all nations who were not at war with any of the allied powers, and fixing a duty of five per ♦Dec. 31.♦ cent. ad valorem upon all articles, except grain and salt, and stores for the use of the army. An order of council was also published in England, permitting British ♦Jan. 14.♦ vessels to trade with these and such other French ports as might be under the protection, or in the military occupation of his Majesty’s arms. To this then were the decrees of Berlin and Milan come at last! The tyrant who had endeavoured to shut the ports of all Europe against British ships and British merchandise, and at one time had well nigh accomplished his barbarous and barbarizing purpose, saw England now regulating the commerce of his own ports, and levying duties in France, ... not after his example, with blind and merciless rapacity, but upon those principles of moderation and equity, on which her power has been raised, and by which her prosperity is supported. Three years had not elapsed since the official journal of Buonaparte’s government had said, that instead of defending Portugal and Cadiz, Great Britain’s efforts would soon be required for the defence of Gibraltar; that Spain having been conquered foot by foot was on the point of being entirely subjected; that Wellington’s mode of defending Portugal had been by abandoning the fortresses and laying waste the country, and God grant, said the Moniteur, that he may one day defend England in the same manner! “Our continental system,” said the official journalist, “is completed; it diminishes your receipts by crippling your commerce, and increases your expenses by obliging you to keep armies in Lisbon and Sicily. In the meantime the French army, according to our fundamental law, lives on the country in which it is making war, and only costs us the pay which it would do at home.”

“The credit which sustained the colossal power of Great Britain,” said Buonaparte to his Legislative Body in the summer of 1811, “is no more. Her allies are either lost or destroyed. She ruins all whom she would subsidize; she exhausts her own people in useless efforts. But the struggle against this modern Carthage will now be decided on the plains of Spain; the peace of the continent will not be disturbed; England herself shall feel the evils which during twenty years she has inflicted on the continental nations. A clap of thunder shall put an end to the affairs of the Peninsula, seal the fate of her armies, and avenge Europe and Asia by terminating this second Punic ♦December.♦ war.” With what feelings must Buonaparte now have reflected upon these bootless boasts!

With as little satisfaction too could he reflect upon the result of that fundamental principle of his military system, by which his armies were made to live on the countries wherein they were making war. The principle of the British commander was to demand nothing from the inhabitants, and to seize nothing; not a single ration was required from them; they were paid on the spot for every thing which they brought, while Soult’s army drained the adjoining provinces by its requisitions, and his soldiers were rendered at once formidable and odious to their own countrymen by the insolent and lawless habits which they had acquired in the Peninsula. The passage of the Nive had put the allies in possession of a large tract of country singularly fertile; they obtained great part of their forage from it; and the right wing by its position on the left of the Adour, commanded the navigation of that river, and often intercepted the enemy’s supplies. In that deep soil, and in a season of continued rain, it was not possible for the army to advance, an individual indeed could with difficulty make his way any where but on the paved road; ... it was hardly thought bad walking if the waters were not more than knee-deep. ♦Injury done by destroying the woods in this part of the Pyrenees.♦ One of those unforeseen effects which frequently arise when man interferes upon a large scale with the works of nature, has rendered this country liable to inundations in winter and spring, and to drought in summer. About the middle of the seventeenth century a speculator4 undertook to supply the French government with ship timber from the Pyrenees; to effect this it was necessary for him to increase the waters of the two rivers, or, as they are there called, Gaves of Pau and Oleron; and by turning into them the course of numerous rivulets, he doubled the volume of the latter stream, and increased the current of the Adour so much that a 50-gun ship could cross the bar of Bayonne with less difficulty than before that time was experienced by a vessel with ten guns. He expended 300,000 crowns upon this scheme, succeeded in it, and ruined his family. But permanent evil was occasioned to the country: for when the mountains were clothed with woods, the snow which was collected there melted gradually under their shade, and fed the streams during the whole year; afterwards, when the snow was exposed to the sun and rain, the streams poured down in torrents, rendering the rivers destructive during the winter and spring, and scarcely supplying water enough in summer for navigation.

While the allies waited in their cantonments till the season should allow them to recommence their operations, telegraphic signal stations, to guard against surprise, were formed on the churches of Guethary, Arcangues, and Vieux Monguerre, and these communicated with one upon a high sand-hill, on the north side of St. Jean de Luz, near the entrance from the Bayonne road: so that notice of any hostile movement might almost instantaneously be communicated to the head-quarters. Works were thrown up in front of the left, as the most assailable part of the line, at Bidaut, at Arcangues, and almost on every knoll. On such occasions it was that unavoidable injury was done to the inhabitants. If a chateau unfortunately stood where it was deemed expedient to fortify it, every part was pulled down that did not serve for the purposes of defence; and all the noble trees around it were felled, while the owner looked on, a sad and helpless spectator of the ruin. These were cases of individual hardship; nothing could be more honourable to the British character than the extreme care which was taken to prevent all avoidable injury, and this was acknowledged by the people with equal surprise and thankfulness. No army ever behaved better even in its own country than the British army at this time in France, and this was owing to Lord Wellington’s regulations. There was another part of the British general’s conduct which attracted the notice and commanded the respect of the French people; he regularly attended divine service, with all his staff, not in the church, but on the sandy beach, the brigade of guards forming a square there. The service of Christmas-day5 was performed there, on a bright frosty day, not a breath of wind stirring, and no extraneous sound but that of a high surf breaking at least half a mile from the shore, and flashing in the sunshine.

Towards the end of December the floods carried away the bridges which had been thrown over the Nive, but they were soon replaced. A detachment was sent towards Hasparren to clear the country in the rear of the right wing of the enemy’s cavalry under Paris; and on new year’s day a small island in the Adour, near Monguerre, was taken from the French without opposition. At this time Clausel was assembling a considerable force on the Gave de Oleron; on the third he drove in the cavalry piquets between the Joyeuse and the Bidouze, and attacked the posts of Major-General Buchan’s Portugueze brigade on the former river, near La Bastide, and those of the third division in Bouloc. The enemy turned the right of the Portugueze brigade on the heights of La Costa, and established two divisions there and on La Bastide, on the Joyeuse, with the remainder of their force on the Bidouze and the Gave. The centre and right of the allies were immediately concentrated and prepared to move; Lord Wellington reconnoitred the enemy the next day, and would have attacked them on the ensuing, if the weather and the swelling of the rivulets had not occasioned a day’s delay. But on the 6th the attack was made by the 3rd and 4th divisions, supported by Buchan’s Portugueze brigade of General Le Cor’s division, and the cavalry under Major-General Fane; the enemy were dislodged without loss on our side, and the troops resumed their former positions. Mina was at this time with three battalions at Bidarray and St. Etienne de Baygorey, observing the movements of the enemy from St. Jean de Pied-de-Port. The people of the vale of Baygorey had distinguished themselves in the war of 1793 by their brave opposition to the Spanish troops; that spirit had been transmitted to the present generation, and it was called into action by their countryman Harispe, one of the most active of the French generals. They were the only peasantry who manifested any disposition to act against the allies; by their aid, with that of Paris’s division, and such troops as could be spared from the garrison of St. Jean, Harispe ♦Jan. 12.♦ moved against Mina, and compelled him to retire into the valley of Aldudes.

These were the only military movements on this side during the month of January; and the state of affairs here was disguised as much as possible from the French people; Buonaparte persisting to the last in that system of falsehood by which he had so long flattered and deluded them. It could not, indeed, be concealed that Lord Wellington’s army was wintering in France, though by what train of events it should have arrived there the French were left to guess. But it was affirmed that he had been defeated in the actions before Bayonne with the loss of 15,000 men; that he now thought of nothing more than intrenching himself within his own lines; that Clausel had assumed an attitude which alarmed him; ... that his situation was becoming more and more critical; ... that the misunderstanding between the Spanish and English troops increased every day; ... that the British commander began to fear lest the part of the French army which remained in the camp at Bayonne might cut off his retreat; in fine, that the allies were filled with consternation, and that while they were suffering from want of provisions, their convoys were wrecked upon the coast of the Landes department, and supplied the French with beef and clothing, and with packages of pressed hay, which were sent to Bayonne, and there served out to Marshal Soult’s cavalry.

But while the Moniteur, in its official articles, dwelt thus upon a chance shipwreck, and attempted, in its usual strain, to deceive the French people, that part of the nation who remembered what had been the state of France before its baneful revolution regarded the progress of the British arms with secret satisfaction, because it offered a hope of the restoration of the Bourbons, and of that peace and security which could be obtained by no other means. The Bourbons themselves thought it was now time for them to take advantage of the course of events, and remind France that by putting an end to their unmerited exile she might put an end to her own multiplied calamities. The Duc d’Angoulême, therefore, with the Duc de Guiche, Comte Etienne de Damas, and Comte d’Escars, sailed from England for Passages, and proceeded to St. Jean de Luz. But as the allied powers, whether wisely or not, had as yet held out no encouragement to the hopes of this royal family, Lord Wellington could receive him with no public honours. Many of the inhabitants, however, hastened to pay their court to him; and the mayor of this little town, expressing to him a hope that the calamities which France had so long endured would soon be terminated by peace, observed, that peace could no otherwise be guaranteed than by the word of their legitimate sovereign; and requested his Royal Highness to convey to the king an assurance of cordial allegiance from the municipality and people of that place. Deputations were also sent to him from the neighbouring communes; and, before his arrival, a circumstance had occurred which more unequivocally manifested the disposition of the people. There was an emigrant officer in the British army whose family estates were in the neighbourhood of Pau; a native of that part of the country came to St. Jean de Luz charged by the tenants of those estates to tell him how much they wished to live again under their own old laws and customs, and how happy they should be once more to pay their rents to their old master. The Duc, under the name of the Comte de Pradelles, lived with the utmost privacy, as the circumstances required; but he addressed a proclamation to the French army, and agents were not wanting to circulate it. He called upon them to rally round the fleurs-de-lys, which he was come, he said, to display once more in his dear country; and he guaranteed, in the name of the king, his uncle, their rank and pay to those who should join him, and rewards proportionate to their services. “Soldiers,” he said, “it is the descendant of Henri IV.; ... it is the husband of a princess whose misfortunes are unequalled, but whose only wishes are for the prosperity of France; ... it is a prince who, forgetting, in imitation of your king, all his own sufferings, and mindful only of yours, throws himself now with confidence into your arms!”

A movement such as this address was intended to excite had already begun, but it was among men who had been trained in better principles than the soldiers of the revolution. An agent of Louis XVIII. had arrived at Bourdeaux, and had found in that city the Marquis de la Rochejaquelein, whom it was part of his commission to see, and say to him that the king depended upon him for La Vendée. Rochejaquelein is one of the redeeming names that appear in the black and bloody history of the French revolution. The present Marquis had succeeded to the title, the principles, and the virtues of his brother, who, in the first Vendean war, had addressed his soldiers in these memorable words: “Si j’avance, suivez-moi; si je recule, tuez-moi; si je meurs, vengez-moi6!” “If I advance, follow me; if I falter, kill me; if I fall, avenge me!” He now went through Anjou and Touraine, and awakened that spirit which the National Convention had not been able, even by its most atrocious barbarities, to suppress. A scheme was formed for delivering Ferdinand from Valençay; but the person who was to have headed the enterprise died at the time when it should have taken place; and, indeed, no advantage could have been derived from it then, if it had succeeded. Rochejaquelein’s designs were suspected, and M. Lynch, the mayor of Bourdeaux, who was then at Paris, warned him, by an express that orders were given for arresting him, and bringing him dead or alive before Savary, Buonaparte’s worthy minister of police. He escaped to Bourdeaux, and while remaining there in concealment, heard that the Duc d’Angoulême was with the English army. Upon this he determined immediately to repair to him, and receive his orders; but before he set out upon this most hazardous adventure he requested an interview with M. Lynch, who was just then returned from the capital. That magistrate, who was always a loyalist at heart, foresaw the speedy overthrow of Buonaparte, and had already given his word to the Polignacs (then in confinement), that if Bourdeaux declared for the king, he would be the first to mount the white cockade; this promise he now renewed to Rochejaquelein, and charged him to assure the Duc of his devoted services, and that he would deliver to him the keys of the town. After many difficulties and dangers, the Marquis succeeded in getting on board a ship bound, with a license, to S. Sebastian’s; and, escaping from a storm by which several vessels were wrecked on the coast, he landed at Passages, and hastened to St. Jean de Luz.

When the Duc heard his report of the state of feeling in La Vendée, of the general opinion which prevailed in France, and of the disposition which there was to receive him in Bourdeaux, he declared that nothing should now make him forsake that country in which he had found subjects who were still so faithful. Without delay, accompanied by the Duc de Guiche, Rochejaquelein proceeded to Lord Wellington, who was then at Garitz; he assured him that Bourdeaux would declare for the Bourbons as soon as a British force should approach it; and, as the means of effecting a powerful diversion in aid of that loyal city, he proposed that the British General should send one or two vessels and a few hundred men to land him by night upon the coast of Poitou, escort him some two leagues into the interior, and then leave him there: while they re-embarked and drew the attention of the troops, he would pursue his way alone, and raise once more that loyal race who had exerted themselves so dutifully, and suffered so severely, in the most frantic and ferocious times of the revolution. Lord Wellington listened with great interest to these representations; but he doubted whether the feelings of the people towards the royal family were what Rochejaquelein believed them to be; and he did not think himself authorized to detach even a small force upon an expedition such as ♦Mémoires de la Marquise de la Rochejaquelein, pp. 513–28.♦ was proposed, when he had no instructions from his own government, and moreover when he was on the eve of great operations, ... for he was now preparing to pass the Adour.

On the side of Catalonia, meantime, all went on favourably for the allies; for if they were too weak to obtain any advantages for themselves, the enemy was weakened to a greater degree, in consequence of the progress of the war in other quarters. Marshal Suchet made one vigorous attempt in the beginning of December to surprise the corps at Villafranca, where the British head-quarters were established. He made a forced night march in this hope with about 15,000 men; but timely information had been obtained. Sarsfield’s division, which was stationed there, retired across the country to the left; the British cavalry and artillery fell back about eight miles along the main road to Arbos, where there was a strong position, and whither General Mackenzie moved his division to their support; and Suchet, having failed in his intention, retired from Villafranca on the afternoon of the same day, and returned to the Llobregat as rapidly as he had advanced. The wants of the Spanish army had now become so pressing that it was necessary to send Sarsfield’s cavalry to the rear, where it might be possible for them to subsist, his infantry being sometimes upon the shortest allowance, and without any sure prospect of even that insufficient dole for more than two or three days. His troops must from sheer destitution have quitted the field had it not been for the merchants of Villa-nueva, who, at his earnest persuasion, but on their own credit, and at their own risk, supplied them with provisions from the imports which arrived at that port. Not a murmur meantime was heard from the men; nor did they evince the slightest feeling of discontent or jealousy when they saw the Anglo-Sicilian troops, forming part of the same army, duly supplied, while they themselves were hungered. Only if the greater strength of the British soldiers appeared, when they were engaged together in the public works, a Spaniard would sometimes quietly say, “Give us your rations, and you shall see us work as well as you do.”

After the Nassau battalions had passed over to Lord Wellington’s camp, immediate advice had been dispatched to Sir William Clinton; and the information was with due secrecy communicated to the officer who commanded the Nassau troops in Catalonia; but this person preferring what he considered his military obligations to his national duty, delivered the papers into General Habert’s hands, who had succeeded Maurice ♦The German troops in Barcelona disarmed.♦ Mathieu in the command at Barcelona. The French would, perhaps, have been better pleased if he had followed the example of his better-minded countrymen; for that German feeling which the officer had renounced existed among the men, and it was deemed necessary to disarm them all, 2400 in number, thus weakening the army of Catalonia, and bringing upon it this additional inconvenience, that the men of whose services it was deprived were to be supported as prisoners, and guarded also. This officer was mortally wounded a few weeks afterwards in a sally from Barcelona.

Suchet’s force was still farther weakened by the withdrawal of 2000 of his Italian troops; he then proposed to the French government, as a measure of expediency, that they should dismantle the city of Barcelona, and content themselves with occupying the citadel and Fort Monjuic, whereby 5000 of the garrison would be disposable for service; but his advice was rejected, the possession of Barcelona being deemed necessary for the support of the army in Catalonia. About the same time two strong battalions of Spaniards were detached from the Anglo-Sicilian army, at the pressing request of General Roche, to assist him in blockading Murviedro. Tarragona had now been so far repaired as to be in a defensible state; but such was the exhausted condition of the province that no stores of any kind could be obtained from it for the Spanish authorities. ♦Failure of an attempt against the enemy at Molins del Rey. January.♦ While both armies were withheld from undertaking any important operation by the diminution of strength on both sides, and by the increasing difficulties of obtaining supplies on the part of the Anglo-Sicilians, a plan was concerted between Sir William Clinton and Manso for attacking the enemy’s cantonments at Molins del Rey and the adjoining villages on the Llobregat: Sir William was to move with 8000 men upon the Barcelona road and attack them in front, while Manso should post himself upon the strong ground in the rear of Molins del Rey, close to the only road by which they could retire. Copons had assented to this project, and agreed to lend Manso and his brigade for this service, both the men and their commander being worthy of all confidence. ♦Jan. 17.♦ The enterprise failed, because Copons, without making any communication to the English General, instead of sending Manso, chose to go himself with a larger force, set off two hours later than the time which had been agreed upon, and finally appeared on the right flank of the enemy instead of in the rear; meantime the force from Villafranca having arrived at the hour appointed, the French, who, if there had been the same punctuality on the other side, must have been taken by surprise, were able to effect their retreat over the Llobregat by the stone bridge near Molins, which was well fortified. Upon the first alarm Suchet dispatched troops to support General Pannetier, who was in command there, and manœuvred in the hope of decoying the allies to a dangerous advance: but Sir William was too wary to incur any unwise risk, when the object of his movement had been disappointed. Had Manso been left to execute what had been concerted with him, Pannetier’s division must in all likelihood have been captured.

A few days afterwards Marshal Suchet received positive orders from Paris to dispatch for Lyons with the least possible delay two-thirds of his cavalry, from 8000 to 10,000 foot, and fourscore field-pieces. He renewed his representations concerning Barcelona, saying, he should delay till the latest minute his departure from the vicinity of that city, in the hope of farther instructions; and he advised that, as the mission of the Duque de S. Carlos had produced no good effect, Ferdinand should be sent to Barcelona, with an understanding that France put him in possession of the fortified places, in reliance upon his honour for sending the garrison home. Meantime he appointed Habert to the command of Lower Catalonia, the division of the Lower Ebro being under General Robert, who commanded in Tortosa; that General was assured that he should soon be delivered, either by succour or by the conclusion of peace; but at the worst, he was instructed, when his provisions should fail, which would be before the end of April, to make for Lerida, collect his troops there, and by a rapid march through the mountains proceed to Benasque, and so into France. No farther ♦He retires to Gerona.♦ advices having reached him by the first of February, Marshal Suchet moved with the remains of his army to the neighbourhood of Gerona; and when, in the course of another fortnight, instructions came to act as he had advised with regard to Barcelona, it was too late, the allies having immediately upon his removal blockaded that city.

A greater mortification awaited him. Eroles, in the month of November, when confined by a dangerous illness at Manresa, received information from one in whom he had reason to place entire confidence, that a Spanish officer, by name D. Juan de Halen, who was then one of Suchet’s aides-de-camp, was desirous of being restored to the service of his country, under his protection. Eroles replied that this was not to be hoped for, unless the officer could make some signal reparation for the injury which he had done to the Spanish name; but that in waiting till this could be effected, he might give proof of his sincerity and earnest of his intentions by communicating such useful information as his situation about Suchet’s person enabled him to obtain. Van Halen replied as if he felt himself wounded by being expected to act the part of a spy: there was not much difficulty in overcoming this objection; and he found means of transmitting intelligence from time to time, and, among other papers, a copy of Suchet’s cipher. The more important communications were not intrusted to writing, but made orally, through the person by whom this correspondence was opened.

Juan Van Halen, as may be inferred from his name, was a Spaniard of Flemish or Brabantine descent. He was a native of the Isle of Leon, and born in 1789. After some years of active service in the navy, he was employed in the engineers; and as an officer in that corps bore a part at Madrid in the tragedy of the 2nd of May. Escaping from the capital, he joined Blake’s army after the battle of Rio-seco, and was sent by him to Ferrol; when that place was surrendered, he took the oath of fidelity to the Intruder, and afterwards held a commission in his body guards. He had the good fortune subsequently to be employed in other parts of Europe, and was at Paris when Buonaparte’s reverses in Germany rendered it no longer doubtful that the part in which he had engaged must finally be the unsuccessful one. A friend and countryman, who had come to the same unpleasant conviction, advised him to forsake the sinking cause; but Van Halen, in his own words, “could not think of prostrating himself at the feet of the throne and of his country, unless he could bear with him the testimony of some such service as might make him worthy of being received in the arms of Spanish generosity and gratitude, not in those of indulgence, or of ♦Restauracion de las Plazas, &c. p. 12.♦ strict justice.” So getting leave from the then expelled Intruder to solicit employment in Spain, he obtained from the Duc de Feltre an appointment upon Suchet’s staff, and provided himself with credentials to Eroles, and also with a letter of recommendation to Sir Rowland Hill.

After carrying on a correspondence with Eroles for about two months, and arranging with him a plan for attacking some of the places which the French held on the left of the Llobregat, it was agreed that he should come over to the Spaniards and put the design in execution; and hoping both to render service to the cause in which he now embarked, and to conceal the fact of his own desertion, leaving Barcelona in the night, he led away with him from the ♦Jan. 17.♦ neighbourhood of that city two squadrons of cuirassiers, to whom he produced a forged order of the Marshal’s that they should follow him on a secret expedition. His intention was that Eroles should intercept them, and make them and himself prisoners: but the messenger, whom he had dispatched two days before to apprise the Baron of his movements, fell in with a party of hussars belonging to the Anglo-Sicilian army, who were scouring the road to Moncada, and was detained by them; and when Van Halen came to the place appointed, and found that the scheme had failed, nothing remained for him but to provide for his own safety by escaping as soon as he could. Thus his desertion became notorious, and all the plans which had been formed upon the supposition of keeping it secret were frustrated.

But Van Halen’s disposition was turned to perilous intrigues and enterprises: he now conceived a design of recovering some strong places by stratagem; and Eroles remembering the Rovirada by which Figueras had been surprised, and being himself of an adventurous spirit, entered readily into his views, and went with him to General Copons, whose head-quarters were then at Vich. Copons was not without difficulty induced to give his consent, and they then proceeded to Xerta, where Don Josef Sans, who commanded the force before Tortosa, had his head-quarters. This place was so strictly blockaded that it was certain no tidings of Van Halen’s desertion could have reached it; and to induce a belief in other quarters that he had left Catalonia, bills upon Madrid and other places at a distance had been taken up for him. He had possessed himself not only of Suchet’s cipher, but of the handwritings which it was necessary to counterfeit; and letters were now written as from the Marshal, informing General Robert the commander that the exigencies of the Emperor’s affairs compelled him to withdraw all his garrisons from that side of the Llobregat; that Colonel D’Eschalard of his staff was gone to Tarrasa, there to conclude the treaty for evacuating them; and that he must be prepared to depart with his equipage and field-artillery as soon as orders to that effect should reach him. It was added, that the Emperor had been pleased to honour him with the grand-cross of the Imperial Order of the Reunion, and upon this the Marshal offered him his congratulations. An unlucky peasant was found, who undertook, in the character of a spy of Suchet’s, to carry this forged dispatch into the town. So few communications, without a strong escort, escaped the vigilance of the Catalans, that whenever a single messenger was sent, the letter ... written in the smallest compass and in the fewest words ... used to be inclosed in lead, and swallowed by the bearer. Van Halen was well acquainted with all the details of such transactions. If the enemy sent a spy out from one of their fortresses, they usually made a sally, and thus brought him out unobserved, and set him on his way; but the messenger who was to make his way in, approached in the darkness, and made a certain signal with a flint and steel. The peasant, though carefully instructed upon this as upon all other points, forgot this important part of his instructions, and in consequence was wounded by the sentinel: the first part of his errand, however, was not the less performed; the dispatch was delivered to General Robert, and no suspicion being entertained of the stratagem, the man was sent to the hospital, and there carefully attended. But the answer which he should have delivered into the hands of his employers was sent by another person, and consequently not received by those who were expecting it.

Having learnt what had befallen their messenger, Eroles and Van Halen proceeded with their device. A Spanish officer was sent with a letter from Sans, saying he had just received a copy of a treaty signed at Tarrasa by the Spanish and French commanders-in-chief in Catalonia, agreeing upon an armistice of fifteen days for the evacuation of the places named in the treaty, Tortosa being one; he inclosed a letter with D’Eschalard’s signature, which it was pretended had accompanied it, and in which it was stated that the chef d’escadron, Van Halen, one of the Marshal’s aides-de-camp, would speedily arrive with full instructions. The garrison were on the point of making a sally when the officer arrived: the news of the armistice spread; a free communication in consequence took place with the advanced posts of the Spaniards, and on the next morning General Robert sent out Colonel Plique to make arrangements for evacuating the place; at the same time he liberated some soldiers who had lately been surprised and made prisoners. The Colonel accordingly came at the hour appointed; Van Halen presented himself in his aide-de-camp’s uniform, and the Spanish Captain Daura, as having accompanied him from the Llobregat, delivered a letter from Copons. Plique desired to be left alone with Van Halen, whose instructions he was authorized to receive, in case the Spanish commander should not permit him to enter the town. He inquired of him concerning the state of affairs which had reduced the Emperor to sacrifice these places, and Van Halen briefly related the series of reverses which rendered it necessary to withdraw from Spain 30,000 men, leaving only garrisons in Barcelona, Gerona, and Figueras. The Marshal, he said, was before Barcelona, waiting impatiently ♦February.♦ for their arrival, that he might begin his march: his desire was that no man should be left in the hospitals if he could safely be removed; that General Robert should bring away all the artillery he could, and include the public money with his own to avoid all difficulty upon that score: for himself, he added, he must proceed with the same orders to Murviedro and Peñiscola. Plique inquired if the English assented to the armistice, and was assured that they did. He then asked if the only favour which the Emperor had bestowed upon their garrison was that of granting the grand-cross to General Robert, the Marshal, he said, when he withdrew from Valencia, having promised to recommend several officers for promotion. Van Halen told him he had understood that two Generals of Brigade were made, M. Plique himself he believed being one, and M. Jorry, then at Murviedro, the other. The Colonel appears to have been completely deceived; but he was instructed to invite Brigadier Sans to a repast before the town should be evacuated, and to request that he would send officers of artillery to take possession of the magazines, and that he would allow the aide-de-camp to return with him into the town, and take up his quarters there. This, Sans said, he was positively enjoined not to permit; all he could allow was that M. Van Halen, accompanied by a Spanish officer, should present himself at the Puente de Jesus, and confer there with General Robert. When they reached the bridge, Robert did not come out, but he sent the chief of his staff, with several officers, and one company, and they renewed the request that Van Halen might enter; this of course was refused, and in case an attempt had been made to seize him, Eroles with a body of horse was near at hand. A letter was sent in, inclosing a copy of the forged treaty, and the parties then separated. Van Halen suspected that the deceit had been discovered; still, however, he carried it on, and wrote to Robert, saying, ♦It fails there.♦ that as the officers had urged him to do, he should have evaded the presence of the Spanish Colonel, had he not been strictly ordered by Marshal Suchet to do nothing which could tend to interrupt the good understanding during the armistice; and being now obliged to communicate without delay his orders in Murviedro and Peñiscola, he was deprived of the honour of seeing him. General Robert answered this by a letter to Sans, regretting that he had not accepted his invitation. Van Halen’s letter, he said, gave him no satisfactory notion either of his proceedings or those of his government; and unless he conferred with Van Halen in the fortress, he should not observe the armistice, but renew hostilities that afternoon, and continue them till this aide-de-camp, whom he must see, returned from Murviedro.