[444] Puthod’s brigade of Villatte’s division, the 94th and 95th of the Line.
[445] The 9th Léger and 24th of the Line from Ruffin’s division, and the 54th from that of Lapisse, each three battalions strong.
[446] It is fair to the Asturians to mention that eight of their ten battalions were raw levies; there were among them only one regular and one militia battalion of old formation.
[447] It is necessary to protest against the groundless libel upon this corps in which Napier indulges (i. 257) when he says: ‘It has been said that Romana’s soldiers died Spartan-like, to a man, in their ranks; yet in 1812 Captain Hill of the Royal Navy, being at Cronstadt to receive Spaniards taken by the Russians during Napoleon’s retreat, found the greater portion were Romana’s men captured at Espinosa; they had served Napoleon for four years, passed the ordeal of the Moscow retreat, and were still 4,000 strong.’ This is ludicrous: the eight battalions of the Baltic division landed in Spain 5,294 strong; a month after Espinosa they still figured for 3,953 in the muster-rolls of the army of Galicia (see the morning state in Arteche, iv. 532). Only 1,300 were missing, so Victor, clearly, cannot have taken 4,000 prisoners. Captain Hill’s (or Napier’s) mistake lies in not seeing that the Russian prisoners of 1812 belonged to the 5,000 men of La Romana’s army (regiments of Guadalajara, Asturias, and the Infante) which did not succeed in escaping from Denmark in 1808, and remained perforce in Napoleon’s ranks.
[448] See [pp. 393-4], and Nap. Corresp., 14,443.
[449] That to Victor will be found in Nap. Corresp., 14,445.
[450] For details of their ride against time, see the Mémoires of St. Chamans, his senior aide-de-camp (p. 107).
[451] The figures here given are mainly those indicated by Napoleon in his dispatch of Nov. 8 (Nap. Corresp., 14,456), supplemented from the morning state of the army on Oct. 10:—
| 2nd Corps (Marshal Soult): | |||
| Division Mouton (Merle) | 6,000 | ||
| Division Bonnet | 4,500 | ||
| Division Merle (Verdier) | 7,000 | ||
| Cavalry of Lasalle | 2,000 | ||
| 2nd Corps (Marshal Soult): | |||
| Division Marchand | } | 17,000 | |
| Division Lagrange (late Bisson) | |||
| Cavalry of Colbert (detached at this moment) | 2,000 | ||
| From King Joseph’s Reserve, Division Dessolles | 6,000 | ||
| Imperial Guard, fourteen battalions of infantry | 8,000 | ||
| Imperial Guard, cavalry | 3,500 | ||
| Cavalry Brigade (Beaumont) belonging to the 1st Corps | 1,200 | ||
| Latour-Maubourg’s Division of Dragoons (six regiments) | 3,700 | ||
| Milhaud’s Division of Dragoons (three regiments) | 2,500 | ||
| Franceschi’s Light Cavalry (four regiments) | 2,000 | ||
| Lahoussaye’s Division of Dragoons (four regiments) | 2,000 | ||
| Total | 67,400 | ||
[452] These battalions were those of Tuy and Benavente, the first a militia battalion, the second a new volunteer corps.