Two days later he left the capital and reached Bayonne on the 3rd of November, where he remained directing the movements of the last columns of his army until the morning of the 8th. He arrived at Vittoria, the headquarters of his brother Joseph, on the same evening. At the gates of the town he was met by the civil and military authorities, where sumptuous preparations had been provided, but instead of accepting their hospitality, entered the first inn he observed, and calling for maps and a detailed report of the position of all the armies, French and Spanish, proceeded instantly to draw up his plan for the prosecution of the war. Within two hours he had completed his task. Soult, who had accompanied him from Paris, set off on the instant, and within a few hours the whole machinery of the army, comprising 200,000 men, was in motion.
Ere long Napoleon saw the main way to Madrid open before him, except some forces said to be posted at the strong defile of the Somosierra, within ten miles of the capital. Saragossa on the east, the British army in Portugal on the west, and Madrid in front were the only far-separated points on which any show of opposition was still to be traced from the frontiers of France to those of Portugal, and from the sea cost to the Tagus.
Having regulated everything on his wings and rear, the Emperor with his Imperial Guards and the first division of the army, now marched towards Madrid, his vanguard reaching the foot of the Somosierra chain on the 30th of November. Here he found that a corps of 12,000 or 13,000 men had been assembled for the defense of that pass under General San Juan, an able and valiant officer who had established an advance guard of 3,000 men at the very foot of the slope which the French would have to ascend, and then distributed over 9,000 men at the pass of Somosierra, at the bottom of the gorge; there the advancing army would be obliged to go through. One part of San Juan's force, posted on the right and left of the road, which formed numerous windings, was to stop the advance of the French by a double fire of musketry. The others barred the causeway itself, near the most difficult part of the pass, with the battery. The defile was narrow and excessively steep, and the road completely swept by sixteen pieces of cannon.
At daybreak on the 1st of December the French began their attempts to turn the flank of San Juan, who imagined himself invincible in his position. Three battalions scattered themselves over the opposite sides of the defile and a warm skirmishing fire had begun. At this moment Napoleon came up, at the head of the cavalry of his Guard rode into the mouth of the pass, surveyed the scene for an instant, and perceiving that his infantry was making no progress, at once conceived the daring idea of causing his brave Polish lancers to charge up the causeway in face of the battery.
The Emperor had stopped near the foot of the mountain and attentively examined the enemy's position, the fire from which seemed to redouble, many balls falling near him, or passing over his head. Colonel Piré was first dispatched at the head of the Poles and having reconnoitred the position, countermanded the advance, and sent an officer to notify Napoleon "that the undertaking was impossible." Upon this information the Emperor much irritated and striking the pommel of his saddle exclaimed, "Impossible! Why, there is nothing impossible to my Poles."
General Wattier, who was present endeavored to calm him but he still continued to exclaim, "Impossible! I know of no such word. What, my Guard checked by the Spaniards,—by armed peasants?" At this moment the balls began to whistle about him and several officers came forward and persuaded him to withdraw. Among these Napoleon observed Major Philip Ségur; to him he said, "Go, Ségur, take the Poles, and make them take the Spaniards, or let the Spaniards take them."
Colonel Piré, having informed Kozietulski, commander of the Polish troops, of what the Emperor had said, that officer replied, "Come then alone with me, and see if the devil himself, made of fire as he is, would undertake this business."
Advancing, they saw 13,000 Spaniards placed as if in an amphitheatre in such a way that no one battalion was masked by another, and they could only join in columns. From that point the Poles had to sustain forty thousand discharges of musketry and as many of cannon, every minute. However, the order was positive.