Soult and King Joseph, meanwhile, had been completing their concentration. They had written to Kellermann, ordering him to send back to Madrid without delay the brigade of Dessolles’ division under Godinot which had been lent him, and to spare them as well one infantry brigade of the 6th Corps. These troops were too far off to be available at once; but of the remainder of their units the Royal Guard and Spanish battalions of King Joseph, with Dessolles’ remaining brigade, were moved out to support Sebastiani. Victor had been brought back across the Tagus, and was also marching on Aranjuez. Mortier’s corps was concentrated at Toledo, while the 2nd Corps was in motion from Oropesa to Talavera, having discovered no signs of a serious advance on the part of Albuquerque. The care of Madrid was handed over to the incomplete French division of the 4th Corps[97], some of whose battalions were dispersed at Guadalajara, Alcala, Segovia, and other garrisons. Paris’s light cavalry of the same corps was also at this moment watching the roads to the east of Madrid. [97] It had still no divisional general, and was officially known by the name of ‘Sebastiani’s division’--regiments 28th, 32nd, 58th, 75th. On the twelfth Areizaga threw Lacy’s division across the Tagus, and laid down two pontoon bridges near Villamanrique, so as to be able to bring over his whole army in the shortest possible time. But the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth were days of storm, the river rose high, and the artillery and train stuck fast on the vile cross-roads from Ocaña over which they were being brought. In consequence less than half the Spanish army was north of the Tagus on November 15, though the advance cavalry pushed on to the line of the Tajuna, and skirmished with Paris’s _chasseurs_ about Arganda. It seemed nevertheless that Areizaga was committed to an advance upon Madrid by the high-road from Albacete, wherefore Soult blew up the bridges of Aranjuez and Puente la Reyna, and ordered Victor to march from Aranjuez on Arganda with the 1st Corps, nearly 20,000 men, purposing to join him with the King’s reserves and to offer battle on the Tajuna, while Mortier and Sebastiani’s Poles and Germans should fall upon the enemy’s flank. But this plan was foiled by a new move upon Areizaga’s part; he now commenced a retreat as objectless as his late advance. Just as Victor’s cavalry came in touch with his front, he withdrew his whole army across the Tagus, destroyed his bridges, and retired to La Zarza on the seventeenth, evidently with the intention of recovering his old line of communication with Andalusia, via Ocaña and Madridejos.