[50] Vol. i. p. 333.
[51] For several curious and interesting stories concerning St. Cyr, the reader may search the third volume of Marbot’s Mémoires. Marbot is not an authority to be followed with much confidence, but the picture drawn of the marshal is borne out by other and better writers.
[52] ‘On ne pourra pas échapper à la pensée que Napoléon, avec sa force immense, a été assez faible pour ne vouloir que des succès obtenus par lui-même, ou du moins sous ses yeux. Autrement on eût dit que la victoire était pour lui une offense: il en voulait surtout à la fortune quand elle favorisait les armes d’officiers qui ne lui devaient pas leur élévation.’ Journal de l’Armée de Catalogne, p. 26.
[53] St. Cyr, p. 23.
[54] Ibid., p. 19.
[55] For composition see the table of the 7th Corps in Appendix of vol. i. The figures given by St. Cyr are Pino 8,368, Souham 7,712, Chabot 1,988, Reille 4,000. The last is an understatement, as shown by the morning state of Reille’s division in Relmas, ii. 456, which shows 4,612 excluding the garrison of Figueras, more than 1,000 strong.
[56] Lord Cochrane’s Autobiography, i. 303. He adds ‘A pretty correct idea of our relative positions may be formed if the unnautical reader will imagine our small force placed in the nave of Westminster Abbey, with the enemy attacking the great western tower from the summit of a cliff 100 feet higher than the tower, so that the breach in course of formation corresponds to the great west window of the Abbey. It was no easy matter to them to scale the external wall of the tower up to the great window, and more difficult still to get down from the window into the body of the church. These were the points I had to provide against, for we could not prevent the French either from breaching or from storming.’
[57] James’s Naval History, v. p. 90.
[58] Compare the narrative of Lord Cochrane, i. 299-300, with those of Belmas, ii. 441, and St. Cyr. The latter is, of course, wrong in saying that the whole sortie was composed of British seamen and marines. It is curious that Cochrane states his own loss at more than the French claimed to have killed or taken.
[59] Cochrane, Autobiography, i. 307.