Napoleon quitted Spain on the 19th of January, 1809, leaving his brother Joseph again in possession of the capital, and an army of 300,000 men under the best generals of France engaged with the remnants of a defeated force which had never reached half that number. No brilliant victories remained to be won; no enemy remained in the field important enough to require the presence of Napoleon. Difficulties of transit and the hostility of the people might render the subjugation of Spain a slower process than the subjugation of Prussia or Italy; but, to all appearance, the ultimate success of the Emperor's plans was certain, and the worst that lay before his lieutenants was a series of wearisome and obscure exertions against an inconsiderable foe. Yet, before the Emperor had been many weeks in Paris, a report reached him from Marshal Lannes which told of some strange form of military capacity among the people whose armies were so contemptible in the field. The city of Saragossa, after successfully resisting its besiegers in the summer of 1808, had been a second time invested after the defeats of the Spanish armies upon the Ebro. [153] The besiegers themselves were suffering from extreme scarcity when, on the 22nd of January, 1809, Lannes took up the command. Lannes immediately called up all the troops within reach, and pressed the battering operations with the utmost vigour. On the 29th, the walls of Saragossa were stormed in four different places. [Defeats of the Spaniards, March, 1809.]