Of the French cavalry we need not speak at such length. When the Spanish war broke out, Bonaparte was possessed of about eighty regiments of horsemen, each taking the field with four squadrons of some 150 to 200 men. There were twelve regiments of cuirassiers, two of carabineers, thirty of dragoons, twenty-six of _chasseurs à cheval_, ten of hussars, i.e. fourteen regiments of heavy, thirty of medium, and thirty-six of light horse. The cuirassiers were hardly ever seen in Spain--not more than two or three regiments ever served south of the Pyrenees[83]. On the other hand the greater part of the dragoons were employed in the Peninsula--there were in 1809 twenty-five of the thirty regiments of them in the field against the English and Spaniards. More than half of the hussars also served in Spain. To the veteran corps of regulars there were added, at the outset of the war, as will be remembered, a great number of ‘provisional regiments,’ but these gradually disappeared, by being incorporated in the older _cadres_, or in a few cases by being formed into new permanent units. There was also a mass of Polish, German, and Italian cavalry; but these auxiliaries did not bear such a high proportion to the native French as did the foreign part of the infantry arm. By far the most distinguished of these corps were the Polish lancers, whom the English came to know only too well at Albuera. The Italians were almost exclusively employed on the east coast of Spain, in the army of Catalonia. The Germans--mostly from Westphalia, Berg, and Nassau--were scattered about in single regiments among the cavalry corps of the various armies. They were always mixed with the French horse, and never appeared in brigades (much less in divisions) of their own. [83] The most distinguished of these was the 13th Cuirassiers, a regiment of new formation, which served throughout the war in Aragon and Catalonia, and was by far the best of Suchet’s mounted corps. For its achievements the reader may be referred to the interesting _Mémoires_ of Colonel de Gonneville.