The Captain-General himself had started out that morning at the head of 150 dragoons, and 200 infantry, all regulars, by the road beyond the Ebro. He had told his subordinates that he was intending to raise in Upper Aragon a force with which he would fall on Lefebvre’s line of communications, and so compel him to abandon his attack on the city. But there is no doubt that he had really conceived grave doubts as to the possibility of Saragossa defending itself, and intended to avoid being captured within its walls. He wished to have the power of continuing the struggle outside, in case the French should penetrate into the city. On the morning after the fight at Alagon, bruised and wounded, he was in a pessimistic frame of mind, as his resolve shows. But there is no occasion to brand him, as does Napier, with timidity: his previous and his subsequent conduct preclude such a charge. It was merely an error of judgement: the Captain-General should have stayed behind to defend his capital, and have sent his brother Lazan, or some other officer whom he could trust, to raise the country-side in the rear of the French[115]. His retirement might well have discouraged the Saragossans and led to deplorable results; but as a matter of fact, Lefebvre’s attack began so soon after he had ridden out over the bridge, that the news of his departure had not yet got abroad, and the populace were still under the impression that he was among them. It was not till the fighting was over that he was missed. [115] That Palafox and those about him despaired of the defence is honestly confessed in the Marquis de Lazan’s _Campaña del verano de 1808_. He and his brother ‘had not believed that an open town defended by untrained peasants could defend itself,’ and the news of Lefebvre’s first repulse astonished as much as it pleased them. Lefebvre-Desnouettes before Saragossa was in exactly the same position as Moncey before Valencia, and acted in the same way, pushing forward a rather reckless attack on the city in full confidence that the Spaniards would not stand before an assault pressed home. He had, moreover, the advantages of being able to attack a wider front, of having no ditches and inundations to cramp his operations, and of dealing with walls even weaker than those of Valencia, and defended by artillery of which very few were pieces of heavy calibre.