Soult directed Lorges’ dragoons against the western road: he himself with Delaborde’s and Merle’s infantry and Lahoussaye’s cavalry took the central _chaussée_ by Barca de Trofa. On the difficult flanking path by Guimaraens he sent Franceschi’s light horse and Mermet’s infantry. On both the main roads the Portuguese positions were so strong that the advancing columns were held back: Soult would not waste men--he was beginning to find that he had none to spare--in attempting to force the entrenched positions opposite him. After feeling them with caution, he pushed a column up-stream to a small bridge at San Justo, which had been barricaded but not broken. Here he established by night a heavy battery commanding the opposite bank. On the morning of the twenty-sixth he opened fire on the Portuguese positions across the water, and, when the enemy had been well battered, hurled the brigade of General Foy at the fortified bridge. It was carried, and Delaborde’s division was beginning to pass, when it met another French force debouching on the same point. This was composed of Mermet and Franceschi’s men: they had beaten the local _Ordenanza_ at Guimaraens, crossed the Avé high up, and were now pushing along the southern bank to take the Barca de Trofa position in the flank. Thus Soult found that, even if his frontal assault at San Justo had failed, his left-hand column would have cleared the way for him a few hours later, being already across the river and in the enemy’s rear. Indeed his lateral detachment had done all that he had expected from it, and at no great cost. For though the _Ordenanza_ had opposed it bravely enough, they had never been able to hold it back. The only notable loss that had been sustained was that of General Jardon, one of Mermet’s brigadiers, who had met his death by his own recklessness. Finding his men checked for a moment, he had seized a musket and charged on foot at the head of his skirmishing line. This was not the place for a brigadier-general, and Jardon died unnecessarily, doing the work of a sub-lieutenant. Finding the French across the river at San Justo, the Portuguese, who were defending the lower bridges, had to give way, or they would have been surrounded and cut off. They yielded unwillingly, and at Ponte de Avé actually beat off the first attempt to evict them. But in the end they had to fly, abandoning the artillery in the redoubts that covered the two bridges[288]. [288] Le Noble (pp. 157-8), and Napier following him, say that the Portuguese murdered their commander, Brigadier-General Vallongo, when the bridges were forced, tore him in pieces, and buried his scattered members in a dunghill. It is a relief to know from Da Luz Soriano, the Portuguese historian, that nothing of the kind occurred, and that there was no officer of the name of Vallongo in the Portuguese army.