[632] See vol. i. p. 37.
[633] Vacani, iii. p. 25, says that the best part of the garrison had been out on an expedition in the hills all the day, seeking for the bands who were said to be threatening the French frontier. They returned late at night tired out, and slept the sleep of the weary, while recruits and convalescents were furnishing the few guards considered necessary in such a strong place. A picket of Neapolitans who were in charge of the main gate were captured without resistance, being attacked, to their surprise, from the inside of the fortress.
[634] Napier suggests (iii. 222) that Peyri might have tried to assail San Fernando before the enemy was properly settled down into it. This seems a most doubtful criticism: he had only 650 men of drafts with him; neither he nor they knew the topography of the fortress; it was pitch dark; the strength of the enemy was unknown. The garrison had succumbed in a few minutes despite of all its advantages of position. To attack would have been foolhardy.
[635] See Napoleon, Correspondance, xxii. no. 17,644. Plauzonne’s regiments were the 3rd Léger, 11th and 79th Line, and four battalions of the 67th Line and one of the 16th Léger also crossed the frontier.
[636] So the French narratives. Martinien’s lists show three officers killed and thirteen wounded on May 3 before Figueras. The regiments which suffered most were the 3rd and 23rd Léger, each with one officer killed and four wounded.
[637] The regulars left in San Fernando were two battalions of Voluntarios de Valencia, one of Ultonia, and two of Antequera.
[638] The composition of the divisions of the Army of Catalonia was shifting, and hard to follow, but (as far as I can make out) Courten’s division consisted of three battalions of Granada, two each of Almanza, Almeria, and America, while the sedentary garrison contained four or five battalions of the new Catalan ‘Sections’ or ‘local line,’ besides a battalion of Voluntarios de Tarragona.
[639] Apparently there was in 1811 no road of this sort, up the steep slope above the railway station of to-day; the main chaussée from Valencia entered the upper city at its north-western end, and there was no good road for carriages up the south-western point, as there is now (the so-called Despeñaperros).
[640] Long since built over. The line of the old fortifications of the upper city is now marked by a broad promenade, the Rambla de San Juan.
[641] It is a stiff climb up a very steep ascent to enter the upper city by its ‘Barcelona Gate.’