[256] Jourdan, Mémoires, p. 449.
[257] See Correspondance du Roi Joseph, ix. p. 462.
[258] For a curious narrative of adventures in Madrid, November 4-10, by a party of English prisoners who escaped in the confusion that followed the outmarch of the French, see the Memoirs of Captain Harley of the 47th, ii. pp. 42-50.
[259] Fortunately for themselves most of King Joseph’s Spanish partisans, who fled from Madrid in July to Valencia, were still under Suchet’s charge and had not returned, or their lot would have been a hard one.
[260] Miot de Melito, iii. p. 258.
[261] The 2nd Division (see above, [p. 90]) had been taken from Soult and lent to the Army of the Centre during the operation of November. It was never given back.
[262] A good picture of the state of Central Spain in January and February 1813 may be got from the Memoirs of d’Espinchel, of the 2nd Hussars, an officer charged with the raising of contributions in La Mancha—a melancholy record of violence and treachery, assassination by guerrilleros and reprisals by the French, of villages plundered and magistrates shot. D’Espinchel had mainly to deal with the bands of El Medico and the Empecinado. See his Souvenirs militaires, pp. 86-110.
[263] Vide v. pp. 550-8.
[264] See Mina’s Life of himself, pp. 39-43. He declares that the French custom-house at Yrun paid him 100 onzas de oro (£300) a month, for leave to pass goods across the Bidassoa.
[265] The remains of Thomières’ unlucky division, cut to pieces at Salamanca—the 1st, 65th, and 101st Line.