St. Sypière had also two redoubts, one on the extreme right called St. Sypière, the other without a name near the road of Caraman.
The whole occupation was two miles long, and to attack the front it was necessary to cross the Ers under fire, advancing over ground naturally marshy and now almost impassable from artificial inundations to the assault of the ridge and its works. If the assailants should force a way between the two platforms, they would, while their flanks were battered by the redoubts above, come in succession upon new works, at Cambon and Sacarin; upon the suburbs of Guillemerie and Etienne; upon the canal; and finally upon the ramparts of the town. But the Ers could not be passed except at Croix d’Orade, and Wellington was reduced to a flank march under fire, between that river and Mont Rave, until he could gain ground to present a front to the latter and storm it; after which the canal was to be crossed above ere the army could be established on the south of Toulouse. To impose that march had been Soult’s object, and his army was disposed in the following order to render it disastrous.
Reille defended St. Cyprien with Taupin’s and Maransin’s divisions.
Daricau’s division lined the canal on the north from its junction with the Garonne to the road of Alby, defending the bridge-head of Jumeaux, the convent of the Minimes, and the Matabiau bridge.
Harispe’s division held the Mont Rave, his right being at St. Sypière, his centre at the Colombette, about which Vial’s horsemen were also collected; his left looked down the road of Alby, having in front a detached eminence within cannon-shot, called the Hill of Pugade, occupied by St. Pol’s brigade.
Soult’s remaining divisions were in columns behind the Mont Rave.
This order of battle formed an angle, each side about two miles long, the apex towards the Alby road being covered by the Pugade hill.
Wellington made the following dispositions of attack for the 10th. Hill to menace St. Cyprien, augmenting or abating his efforts according to the progress of the main battle. The third and light divisions and Freyre’s Spaniards to move against the northern front; the two first, supported by Bock’s cavalry, were to menace the line of canal defended by Daricau—Picton at the bridge of Jumeaux and the Minimes; Alten to connect him with Freyre, who, reinforced with the Portuguese artillery, was to carry the hill of Pugade, and then halt to cover Beresford’s column. This last, composed of the fourth and sixth divisions with three batteries, was to move round the left of the Pugade, and along the low ground between the Mont Rave and the Ers, until the rear should pass the road of Lavaur in the centre, when it was to wheel into line and attack the platform of St. Sypière. Freyre was then to assail that of Calvinet, and Ponsonby’s dragoons were to connect that general’s left with Beresford’s column. Meanwhile Lord Edward Somerset’s hussars and Vivian’s cavalry were to ascend both banks of the Ers in observation of Berton’s cavalry; because the latter could by the bridges of Bordes and Montaudran pass from the right to the left bank, destroy the bridges, and fall on the head of Beresford’s troops.
Battle of Toulouse. (April, 1814.)
On the 10th of April, at two o’clock in the morning, the light division passed the Garonne by the bridge at Seilh, and at six the army moved to the attack. Picton and Alten on the right, drove the French posts behind the works covering the bridges on the canal. Freyre, marching along the Alby road, was cannonaded by St. Pol until he passed a small stream, when the French general, following his instructions, retired to the works on the Calvinet platform: the Spaniards were thus established on the Pugade, opposite the apex of the French position, which the Portuguese guns cannonaded heavily.