by regular officers and troops alone, the place would probably have fallen three weeks earlier. If the monks and local demagogues had been in command, and patriotic anarchy alone had been opposed to the French, Saragossa would possibly have fallen at an even earlier date, from mere want of intelligent direction. Palafox, with all his faults, supplied the connecting link between the two sections of the defenders, and kept the soldiery to work by means of the example of the citizens, while he restrained the citizens by dint of his immense personal influence over them, won in the first siege. In short, he may have been vain, bombastic, and a bad tactician, but he was a good Spaniard. If there had been a few dozen men more of his stamp in Spain, the task of the French in 1808-9 would have been infinitely more difficult. The example of Saragossa was invaluable to the nation and to Europe. The knowledge of it did much to sicken the French soldiery of the whole war, and to make every officer and man who entered Spain march, not with the light heart that he felt in Germany or Italy, but with gloom and disgust and want of confidence. They never failed to do their duty, but they fought without the enthusiasm which helped them so much in all the earlier wars of the Empire. [156] The foundation for most of the stories against Palafox seems to be Lannes’ letter to Napoleon of 19 mars: ‘Ce pauvre misérable prêtait seulement son nom aux moines et aux intrigants.’ I cannot find anywhere the source from which Napier draws his statement that Palafox hid himself in a bomb-proof, and lived ‘in a disgusting state of sensuality,’ shirking all the dangers of the siege (i. 389). [157] Arteche, iv. 507-8. SECTION XII THE SPRING CAMPAIGN IN LA MANCHA AND ESTREMADURA CHAPTER I THE ROUT OF CIUDAD REAL By the middle of the month of February, as we have already seen, Andalusia was once more covered by two considerable Spanish armies: Cartaojal, with the wrecks of Infantado’s host and the new levies of Del Palacio, was holding the great passes at the eastern end of the Sierra Morena. Cuesta had rallied behind the Guadiana the remains of the army of Estremadura. He was at present engaged in reducing it to order by the only method of which he was master, the shooting of any soldier who showed signs of disobedience or mutiny[158]. The army deserved nothing better: its dastardly murder of its unfortunate general in December justified any amount of severity in his successor. [158] There are details in the diary of a citizen of Badajoz in the _Vaughan Papers_. Meanwhile Victor, after his victory at Ucles, and his vain attempt to surprise Del Palacio, had passed away to the west, leaving nothing in the plains of La Mancha save the dragoons of Milhaud and Latour-Maubourg, who were placed as a cavalry screen across the roads to the south, with their divisional head quarters at Ocaña and Madridejos respectively.