Some British cavalry, riding up from the low ground, now attempted to charge, but were stopped by a deep hollow road, into which several troopers fell and there perished. Meanwhile the combat about the redoubts continued, yet the French, though most numerous, never could retake the Platform; and when Harispe and General Baurot had fallen dangerously wounded, drew off by their right to Sacarin, and by their left towards the Matabiau.
During this contest the Spaniards had again attacked the Calvinet platform from Pugade hill, but were again put to flight; the French thus remained masters of their entrenchments in that quarter, and Beresford halted to reform his battle and receive his artillery, which came to him with great difficulty, and little ammunition from the heavy cannonade it had previously furnished. However, Soult, seeing the Spaniards, supported by the light division, had rallied a fourth time; that Picton again menaced the bridge of Jumeaux and the Minime convent; and that Beresford, master of three-fourths of Mont Rave, was now ready to advance along the summit, relinquished the Calvinet platform entirely, and withdrew about five o’clock behind the canal, still holding Sacarin and Cambon. Wellington was then master of the Mont Rave, and so ended the battle of Toulouse, in which the French had five generals and about three thousand men killed or wounded, and they lost a gun. The allies lost four generals and more than four thousand six hundred men and officers, two thousand being Spaniards. A lamentable spilling of blood, and useless, for before this period Napoleon had abdicated the throne of France, and a provisional government was constituted at Paris.
During the night Soult replaced the ammunition expended in the action, reorganized and augmented his field artillery from the arsenal of Toulouse, and made dispositions for fighting the next morning behind the canal. Looking however to a final retreat, he wrote to Suchet to inform him of the result of the contest, and proposed a combined plan of operations illustrative of the firmness and pertinacity of his temper. “March,” said he, “with the whole of your forces by Quillan upon Carcassonne. I will meet you there with my army, we can then retake the initiatory movement, transfer the seat of war to the Upper Garonne, and holding on by the mountains compel the enemy to recall his troops from Bordeaux, which will enable Decaen to recover that city and make a diversion in our favour.”
On the morning of the 11th he was again ready, but Wellington was not. The French position, within musket-shot of the city walls, was still inexpugnable on the northern and eastern fronts; the conquest of Mont Rave was only a preliminary step to the passage of the canal, and throwing of the army on the south side of the town; a great matter, requiring fresh dispositions, and provision of ammunition only to be obtained from the parc on the other side of the Garonne. Hence, to accelerate the preparations, to ascertain Hill’s state, and give him further instructions, Wellington repaired on the 11th by Seilh to St. Cyprien; but the day was spent before the arrangements for the passage of the canal could be completed, and the attack was therefore deferred until daylight.
Meanwhile the light cavalry were sent up the canal, to interrupt the communications with Suchet and menace Soult’s retreat on Carcassonne. Their appearance on the heights above Baziege, together with the preparations in front, taught Soult he would soon be shut up in Toulouse instead of fighting; wherefore, leaving eight pieces of heavy artillery, two generals, Harispe being one, and sixteen hunched men whose wounds were severe, to the humanity of the conquerors, he filed out of the city with surprising order and ability, made a forced march of twenty-two miles, cut the bridges over the canal and the Upper Ers, and the 12th established his army at Villefranche. Hill followed, and at Baziege the light cavalry beat the French with the loss of twenty-five men, cutting off a like number of gens d’armes on the side of Revel.
Now Wellington entered Toulouse in triumph, the white flag was displayed, and, as at Bordeaux, a great crowd of persons adopted the Bourbon colours; but the mayor, faithful to his sovereign, retired with the French army; and the British general, true to his honest line of policy, again warned the Bourbonists that their revolutionary movement must be at their own risk. In the afternoon however two officers, the English colonel, Cooke, and the French colonel, St. Simon, arrived from Paris, charged to make known to the armies the abdication of Napoleon. They had been detained near Blois by the officiousness of the police attending the court of the Empress Louisa, and the blood of eight thousand brave men had overflowed the Mont Rave in consequence: nor did their arrival immediately put a stop to the war. When St. Simon, in pursuance of his mission, reached Soult’s quarters on the 13th, that marshal, not without just cause, demurred to his authority, and proposed to suspend hostilities until authentic information could be obtained from the ministers of the emperor; then sending all his incumbrances by the canal to Carcassonne, he took a position of observation at Castelnaudary and awaited the progress of events. Wellington refused to accede to his proposal, and as General Loverdo, commanding at Montauban, had acknowledged the authority of the provincial government, he thought Soult designed to make a civil war, and therefore marched against him. The 17th the outposts were on the point of engaging, when the Duke of Dalmatia, having then received official information from the chief of the emperor’s staff, notified his adhesion to the new state of affairs in France; with this honourable distinction, that he had faithfully sustained the cause of his great monarch until the very last moment.[40]
Lord Wellington immediately transmitted the intelligence to the troops at Bayonne. Too late. Misfortune and suffering had there fallen upon one of the brightest soldiers of the British army.
Sally from Bayonne. (April, 1814.)
During the progress of the main army in the interior, General Hope had conducted the investment of Bayonne with all the unremitting vigilance that difficult operation required. He had gathered gabions and fascines and platforms, and was ready to attack the citadel, when rumours of the events at Paris reached him, yet indirectly and without any official character to warrant a formal communication to the garrison: he made them known indeed at the outposts, but to such irregular communications, which might be intended to deceive, the governor naturally paid little attention. At this time the fortified posts at St. Etienne were held by a brigade of the fifth division; from thence to the extreme right the Guards had charge of the line, one company being in St. Etienne itself; Hinuber’s German brigade was encamped as a support to the left; the remainder of the first division was in the rear.
In this state, about one o’clock in the morning of the 14th, a deserter gave General Hay, who commanded the outposts that night, an exact account of a projected sally; the general could not speak French, and sent him to Hinuber, who interpreted the man’s story to Hay, put his own troops under arms, and transmitted the intelligence to Hope. It would appear that Hay, perhaps disbelieving the man’s story, took no additional precautions, and it is probable neither the German brigade nor the reserves of the Guards would have been under arms but for Hinuber. However, at three o’clock, the French, commencing with a false attack on the left of the Adour as a blind, poured suddenly out of the citadel to the number of three thousand combatants; they surprised the picquets, and with loud shouts, breaking through the chain of posts at various points, carried with one rush the church and the village of St. Etienne, with exception of a fortified house defended by Captain Forster of the 38th. Masters of every other part, and overbearing all before them, they drove picquets and supports in heaps along the Peyrehorade road, killed General Hay, took Colonel Townsend of the Guards prisoner, divided the wings of the investing troops, and, passing in rear of the right, threw the whole line into confusion. Then it was that Hinuber, having his Germans in hand, moved up to Etienne, rallied some of the fifth division, and being joined by a battalion of Bradford’s Portuguese, bravely gave the counter-stroke to the enemy and regained the village and church.