[219] The student must he specially warned against Fririon’s figures for French losses. Though he was Masséna’s aide-de-camp, and wrote a quasi-official account of the whole retreat, his numbers are wholly untrustworthy. He states (p. 149) that the 6th Corps only lost 179 killed and wounded between March 1 and March 15. The actual losses were Pombal, 63; Redinha, 227; Casal Novo, at least 55; Foz do Arouce, at least 250 = 600. Similarly he states the loss at Sabugal at 250; the official casualty list sent in to the Marshal gives a total of 750. Fririon, from his position, must have seen, or at least could have seen, these figures. SECTION XXIV: CHAPTER II GUARDA AND SABUGAL. MARCH 22ND-APRIL 12TH, 1811 At noon on March 22nd, the day following that on which the French head quarters had reached Celorico, Masséna issued a new set of orders, entirely contradictory to those which he had been giving during the last fifteen days. Though on the 19th he had stated his intention of ‘falling back closer to his base of operations on the fortresses [Almeida and Rodrigo], and giving the army a rest after its fatigues and privations[220],’ he now proposed to plunge back once more into the mountains, and to swerve aside from his places of strength and his dépôts. The commanders of the corps received the astounding news that it was the intention of the Commander-in-Chief to turn south-eastward, towards the Spanish frontier and the central Tagus, with the object of taking up a position in the Coria-Plasencia country, from which he would threaten central Portugal on a new front. This necessitated a march from Celorico through the mountains of Belmonte and Penamacor, and then across the Sierra de Meras, into the thinly-peopled plateau of northern Estremadura. [220] Dispatch to Berthier, from Maceira, of that date.