On the night of August 15, Junot marched out of Lisbon at the head of his reserve, a very small force consisting of a battalion of the 82nd of the line, one of the two regiments of grenadiers, which he had created by concentrating the grenadier companies of the eighteen line battalions in his army[216], the 3rd provisional regiment of dragoons, a squadron of volunteer cavalry formed by the French inhabitants of Lisbon, and his reserve artillery--ten guns under General Taviel. He also took with him the reserve ammunition-train, a large convoy of food, and his military chest containing a million of francs in specie. On the morning of the seventeenth the troops had reached Villafranca, when a false report that the English were trying to land at Cascaes caused them to retrace their steps for some miles, and to lose half a day’s march. On learning that Lisbon and its neighbourhood were quiet, Junot returned to the front, and growing vexed at the slow march of the great convoy which the reserve was escorting, pushed on ahead, and joined Loison at Cercal. He heard the distant thunder of the guns at Roliça in the afternoon, but was too far away to help Delaborde. [216] Junot had created two of these regiments of grenadiers, each of two battalions. The second was at this moment with Loison. On the eighteenth Loison and Junot marched southward to Torres Vedras, and heard that Delaborde had fallen back so far that he was ten miles to their rear, at Montechique. He only came up to join them next day [August 19], and the reserve with its heavy convoy, much hampered by bad country roads in the Monte Junto hills, did not appear till the twentieth. Junot had been much exercised in mind by the doubt whether Wellesley would march by the direct road on Lisbon through Torres Vedras and Montechique, or would continue to hug the shore by the longer route that passes by Vimiero and Mafra. Not knowing of the approach of Acland’s and Anstruther’s brigades, he was ignorant of the main fact which governed his adversary’s movements. But learning on the twentieth that the British were still keeping to the coast-road, by which they could in one more march turn his position at Torres Vedras, he determined to rush upon them with his united forces and give battle. At the last moment he resolved to draw a few more men from Lisbon, and called up a battalion of the 66th of the line, and another composed of four picked companies selected from the other corps of the garrison--a trifling reinforcement of 1,000 or 1,200 men, which arrived just too late for the fight at Vimiero.