[652] Memoir of ‘T.S.’ of the 71st Highlanders, p. 53.
[653] I am again quoting from the admirable narrative of ‘T.S.’, the private in the 71st. Compare Ormsby’s Letters, ii. 92-3, for the wanton plundering.
[654] The French did worse, as they burnt the whole castle when they occupied it during the first days of the new year. But that is no justification for the conduct of the British. For a description of the damage done see Ormsby, ii. 102, 103.
[655] General Order, issued at Benavente on Dec. 27.
[656] Five regiments (7th, 10th, and 15th Hussars, 18th Light Dragoons, 3rd K. G. L.) were being pressed by thirteen French regiments—four each of Lorges’s and Lahoussaye’s, two of Colbert’s, and three of the Guard.
[657] Moore to Castlereagh, from Benavente, Dec. 28.
[658] Recollections of Rifleman Harris, p. 171.
[659] Napoleon (Nap. Corresp., 14,623) says that the regiment of chasseurs was only 300 strong, and their loss only sixty. But the splendid regiments of the Guard cavalry had not yet fallen to this small number of sabres.
[660] He was sent to England, and long lived on parole at Cheltenham. While he was there Charles Vaughan called on him, and got from him some valuable information about the first siege of Saragossa, whose history he was then writing. In 1811 Lefebvre broke his parole and escaped to France, where Napoleon welcomed him and restored him to command.
[661] Larrey, the Emperor’s surgeon, commenting on sabre-wounds, says that no less than seventy wounded of the chasseurs came under his care on this occasion.