[500] Carrol was with this party. He had come out from Vigo to join La Romana, was at La Gudina on June 16, and retreated to Monterey when Franceschi attacked that point. The Marquis turned back when he saw Franceschi move off eastward, and retired to his old head quarters at Orense. If Soult had pushed westward, the Spaniards had the choice between the road to Chaves and that back to Orense, and were in no danger.
[501] ‘Il (Ney) m’engageait à rester en Galice, et me représentait qu’il pourrait résulter pour lui de fâcheuses conséquences si j’en sortais. Cette proposition m’étonna: il me parut que M. le Maréchal Ney se conduisait à m’obliger à rester en Galice: car certainement rien ne l’empêchait de manœuvrer sur Orense, tandis que moi-même j’agissais contre La Romana.... Je me crus encore plus obligé qu’auparavant de suivre mon premier projet.’ Soult to Joseph, June 25.
[502] On reaching Zamora, Franceschi handed over the charge of his division to General Pierre Soult, the Marshal’s brother, and rode on towards Madrid with no escort but two aides-de-camp. They were captured near Toro by the celebrated guerrilla chief El Capuchino (Fray Juan Delica), who sent the important dispatches which they were bearing to Seville: Frere instantly forwarded a copy to Wellesley (July 9), who thus got invaluable information as to Soult’s situation and future intentions. In the Record Office there is a letter requesting that the news of Franceschi’s captivity may be sent to his wife in Paris, which was duly done. The unfortunate general was imprisoned first at Granada and then at Cartagena: in both places, it is said, he was treated with unjustifiable rigour, and kept in close confinement within four walls—it was the same usage that Napoleon meted out to Palafox. He died of a fever in 1811, after two years’ captivity.
[503] There is so much valuable information in these dispatches of Soult, dated June 25, from Puebla de Senabria, that I have printed the most important paragraphs [as an Appendix]—omitting the lengthy narrative of the operations on the Sil and the Bibey in which the Marshal vainly flattered himself that he had dispersed the armies of La Romana and ‘Chavarria’ (i.e. Echevarria).
[504] See [sect. xi. chap. i]. [pp. 101-2].
[505] Toreno gives some curious details about the surrender of Jaca, which he says was largely due to the intrigues of a friar named José de Consolation, who preached resignation and submission to God’s will in such moving terms that the greater part of the garrison deserted! He was afterwards found to have been an agent of the French. The Central Junta sent the Governor Campos, the Corregidor Arcón, and the officers commanding the artillery and engineers before a court-martial, which condemned them all to death. Only the engineer was caught (he had openly joined the French) and shot. [Arteche, vi. p. 10.]
[506] Only the single regiment, America, whose cadre, sent back by Infantado from Cuenca, was being filled up with recruits from the Morella district. [Junot to King Joseph, from Saragossa, March 25.]
[507] See Joseph’s letter of April 6, and the Emperor’s orders, from Paris, of April 5 and April 10.