There is another difficulty caused by a second freak of the Emperor: all regiments ought, as we have said, to have shown four field battalions. But Bonaparte sometimes added one or even two more, to corps which stood high in his favour, or whose dépôts produced on some occasions a very large surplus of conscripts. Thus we find now and then, in the morning state of a French army corps, a fifth or even a sixth[80] battalion of some regiment. But as a rule these units had not a very long existence: their usual fate was to be sent home, when their numbers ran low from the wear and tear of war, in order to be incorporated in the normal _cadres_ of their corps. On the authority of that good soldier and admirable historian, Foy, we are able to state that on the first of June, 1808, Napoleon had 417 field battalions, over and above the dépôts, on his army rolls. If the 113 regiments of the line, and the thirty-two light infantry regiments had all been in existence and complete, there should have been 580 field battalions. Clearly then some corps had disappeared and many others had not more than three battalions ready. But the units were always being created, amalgamated, or dissolved, from week to week, so that it is almost impossible to state the exact force of the whole French army at any given moment. The most important change that was made during the year 1808 was the conversion of those of the provisional regiments which escaped Dupont’s disaster into new permanent corps. By combining them in pairs the 114th-120th of the line and the 33rd léger were created[81]. In the succeeding five years more and more corps were raised: the annexation of Holland and Northern Germany in 1810-11 ultimately enabled the Emperor to carry the total of his line regiments up to 156 [1813], and of his light infantry regiments up to thirty-six[82]. [80] In the campaign of 1810 the 26th, 66th, and 82nd regiments in Masséna’s army had 5th and 6th battalions in the field. [81] This was done on July 7 (see _Nap. Corresp._, 14,164). Nos. 1 and 2 became the 114th of the line, 3 and 4 the 115th, 5 and 6 the 116th, 7 and 8 the 33rd léger, 9 and 10 the 117th, 11 the 118th, 13 and 14 the 119th, 17 and 18 the 120th. When the 6th, 7th, and 8th were captured at Baylen, new conscripts had to be brought from France to complete the 116th and replace the 33rd léger. [82] See Rousset’s excellent _La Grande Armée de 1813_.