But it was the constant influx into Spain of French troops which contributed in the most serious way to frighten the Spanish court. Junot had entered Lisbon on Nov. 30, and the news that he had mastered the place without firing a shot had reached the Emperor early in December. But long before, on the twenty-second of November, the French reserves, hitherto known as the ‘Second Corps of Observation of the Gironde,’ which had been collected at Bayonne in November, crossed the Spanish frontier. They consisted of 25,000 men--nearly all recently levied conscripts--under General Dupont. The treaty of Fontainebleau had contained a clause providing that, if the English tried to defend Portugal by landing troops, Napoleon might send 40,000 men to aid Junot _after giving due notice to the King of Spain_. Instead of waiting to hear how the first corps had fared, or apprising his ally of his intention to dispatch Dupont’s corps across the frontier, the Emperor merely ordered it to cross the Bidassoa without sending any information to Madrid. The fact was that whether the preliminary condition stated in the treaty, an English descent on Portugal, did or did not take place, Bonaparte was determined to carry out his design. A month later the Spaniards heard, to their growing alarm, that yet a third army corps had come across the border: this was the ‘Corps of Observation of the Ocean Coast,’ which had been hastily organized under Marshal Moncey at Bordeaux, and pushed on to Bayonne when Dupont’s troops moved forward. It was 30,000 strong, but mainly composed of conscript battalions of the levy of 1808, which had been raised by anticipation in the previous spring, while the Russian war was still in progress. On the eighth of January this army began to pass the Pyrenees, occupying all the chief towns of Biscay and Navarre, while Dupont’s divisions pressed on and cantoned themselves in Burgos, Valladolid, and the other chief cities of Old Castile. They made no further advance towards Portugal, where Junot clearly did not require their aid.