This is really too bad—my friend says the ground was covered with dead Spaniards, and that he saw but few French; this is generally the result of alarm and flight. The redoubt was taken, but not by the Spaniards, it is said; the fire close to Lord Wellington was most severe. Near the town the French fought very hard in the houses, particularly at some houses near the lock of the canal close to the river. We each occupied some of the houses, and fired continually; the French houses were loop-holed, and they had the best. We were obliged to bring guns, &c.; and, unfortunately, the most successful shell fell into one of our own houses, and burnt out our own people. Among the killed, &c., I hear, is Colonel Coghlan of the 61st, an excellent officer, Lieutenant-colonel Forbes, Captain Gordon, 10th Hussars. Colonel Fitzclarence is wounded in the thigh: he charged with his troops two French squadrons, he says, up a hill, beat them, but on the top was received by infantry: the first shot carried away part of his sword, the second hit him on the thigh, and they fell back. We were close to the town and to the bridge last night on all sides, and had moved our bridge up within two miles of the town. The French have barricaded the houses and streets, fixed swivels on the tops, lined the roofs with men, &c., and seem determined to defend the town with desperation. An officer deserted yesterday, and says he will serve no longer under a man who acts like a madman, as Soult now does, in defending a town like Toulouse in such a manner.—It is madness.
Four Spanish officers came in here yesterday, who had escaped from Italy through Switzerland, and had walked here. They seemed in great distress. We had no Commissary here: I therefore gave them eight pounds of bread and a dozen eggs, got them a quarter for the night, and advised them to stay here until this morning, and then proceed to head-quarters. One had served in Colonel Roche’s corps in Catalonia, and spoke English tolerably. Our delay here, and in taking the town, has alarmed the people very much. All who have relations and friends in Toulouse are terribly frightened. The officer who deserted says that many will do the same as soon as the business is over, and occasions arise. Captain O. K——, the French-English officer from Toulouse, who came over to the Duke d’Angoulême at St. Jean de Luz, arrived here yesterday from Bordeaux. He says, that things are going on well, especially since the news from Paris; that the Duke has now eighteen hundred men formed; and that French officers come in every day with fleur-de-lys embroidered on their Napoleon uniforms, and thus tender their services. O. K—— was here on his road to Aurillac, to Auvergne, &c., where, he says, a party is formed and ready to rise. He must take care of his head, for he goes about talking very imprudently.
Head-Quarters, Toulouse, April 13th, 1814, Section 3, No. 676.—To give you any notion of what we have all felt from the changes which the last thirty-six hours have produced, you must go back to my first sheet, and you will feel more as I did, by reading in succession what has occurred than by anything I can now write. I was about to destroy the first sheet, as much of it is now not worth the trouble of reading; but thought it would give you a better idea of the feelings, from day to day, of the army.
An order came for civil departments to march, to cross the pontoons, and to proceed on the high road to Toulouse to a church only three miles from the town, and there halt and wait for orders. We were off in ecstasies, expecting all to dine in Toulouse, and that the French were off, and our men after them. Judge of our vexation, when, on arriving at the church, we were all turned back off the road, to a miserable village of about ten houses, called St. Albains; and were there to find quarters for the night, in places just quitted by the plundering Spaniards, and left nearly in the state in which the French left the houses in Spain as they passed.
When we arrived, we found many of the Spaniards still in possession, and four of us disarmed and seized three of them in the act of plundering. The people were screaming in every direction, the houses abandoned, and the inhabitants just beginning to return to witness the mischief done. Everything had been ransacked—all the closets, &c., broken open; the rags and remnants on the floor, mixed with hundreds of egg-shells, and the feathers of the plundered fowls, &c. Much linen was carried off, the sheets and heavy articles in the yard; the tables were covered with broken dishes, bottles, bones, and twine; and the cellars with the wine-casks running. In about two hours we got possession of the quarters, and got the inhabitants in to clean them, and by five o’clock had divided the places among us. My whole baggage lost its road, and did not arrive at all—five mules and a horse loaded.
You may conceive the disappointment and the vexation we experienced. Dr. M’Gregor said that our loss was terrible! He was just returned from collecting all the wounded in villages, and, by Lord Wellington’s desire, was hurrying every one possible instantly to the rear. They were passing all night in cars. The Spaniards were moaning and crying most desperately, and were to reach Fenoullet that night, Sole Jourdain the next, and then to be sent on further if necessary. The accommodations were very bad. The accounts from the town were that the French were continuing to barricade every house and loophole, and arming to defend themselves to the last.
The army was said to be now much weakened; the Spaniards could not be depended upon; the reinforcements were not come up from England, and a story was going about and believed by many who ought to have known better, that we were out of ammunition, and could not use our artillery. You may conceive that I went (without my baggage and comforts), with this news, sorrowfully to bed, ordering my servant to be off at five in the morning in search of my stragglers.
On the 12th, at 6 o’clock, I was up and wandering about alone, listening to an occasional heavy gun, seeing wounded men pass, and waiting for the return of my man. About eight I saw Henry returning alone, and was expecting more bad news, when he told me that the French were off, that we were to march for Toulouse directly, and that my baggage was all safe at a house a league off on the road; and that, therefore, he had ordered them to pack and be off with the rest. Think of our sensations on hearing of this welcome change! The last twenty-four hours had been among the most critical of the war, and now all was safe and right again. I found out the clergyman, Mr. B——, got a razor and a cup of tea, whilst my horse was getting ready, and was then off, to go round by head-quarters and to enter Toulouse with Lord Wellington. About eleven I arrived at the fortified entrance, and found, instead of the enemy behind the new works, the maire of the town, almost all the officers of the garde urbaine, a considerable number of national guard officers, deserters, &c., and about two hundred smart but awkward men of the city guard, and a band of music, all with the white cockade, and a great crowd of citizens besides, all waiting with anxiety to receive Lord Wellington, and carry him in form to the mayoralty. Unluckily, from some mismanagement and mistake, he went in at another entrance, and passed on, almost unknown. Hearing this, I went to the mayoralty with General Packington’s aide-de-camp, and found it was so; and, therefore, we went back to inform the mayor officially, and to beg he would return to the maison commune. He did so, though an immense crowd entered the mayoralty in form, and an introduction then took place, and Lord Wellington showed himself at the window, amidst the shouts and waving handkerchiefs and hats of every one.
The procession then went with Lord Wellington to his quarters, the Prefêt’s palace, amidst the applause of the inhabitants all the way. Nothing could be more gratifying than his reception, and that, indeed, of all the English; the most respectable inhabitants, many of them, not only anxiously showing us the way to our billets, but offering their homes without any billets, or receiving us with a sincere welcome as soon as the paper was delivered. Lord Wellington announced a ball in the evening at the Prefecture, and left Marshal Beresford with three divisions and cavalry to follow Marshal Soult for the day.
We thought nothing could make us happier, when at five o’clock in came Colonel Ponsonby from Bordeaux with the Paris news, which you know. He told us that the official accounts would arrive in an hour or two. Ponsonby came through Montauban: the French officer commanding there taking his word, and letting him pass. I had been, at Colonel Campbell’s request, examining General St. Hilaire and his servant. St. Hilaire was found, under suspicious circumstances, in the town, and was just put under arrest, and Campbell luckily asked me to dine with Lord Wellington, which I should have been very sorry to have missed.