Masséna started off his aide-de-camp Pelet for Paris next day, with orders to get to the Emperor without delay, and explain the situation before Ney could tell his tale. This his emissary succeeded in doing, and his representations to Napoleon were backed by those of Foy, who had borne Masséna’s earlier message of March 9, and was still in Paris. The Emperor seems to have approved of Masséna’s stringent dealing with his subordinate, and even to have expressed his satisfaction with the new plan for marching the Army of Portugal to the middle Tagus[227]. He also declared that corps-commanders of the type of Ney and Junot were a mistake, and that to avoid further friction he would cut up the whole army into divisions, and abolish the corps altogether. But at the same time he allowed Ney to return to Paris, gave him a mere formal reproof, and then continued to employ him in posts of the highest importance. Next year the Marshal was to win his last title of ‘Prince of the Moscowa’ under his master’s eye, on the field of Borodino. [227] Foy to Masséna, April 8, 1811: ‘J’ai dit à Sa Majesté que vous paraissiez être dans l’intention de porter votre quartier général à Guarda, mais que (ne pouvant pas vivre dans cette position) vous seriez probablement obligé de descendre jusqu’à Alcantara. Cette position a paru à l’Empereur propre à protéger également le midi et le nord de l’Espagne.’ Some parts of this interview of Foy with Napoleon, related in his usual vivid style, are too good to omit. ‘Did Masséna really intend to force the passage of the Tagus? He did? Well then, he would have destroyed his army if he had tried. But I was not worried about it; I knew he would never try to cross. Would Masséna pass the Tagus, he who in the Isle of Lobau [Wagram campaign of 1809] would not try to pass a mere brook! The moment you told me that he had returned from in front of Torres Vedras I knew that he would come back, and refuse to risk a general engagement.... Wellington is a cleverer man than Masséna: he kept his eye fixed on Claparéde’s division; if Claparéde had been brought forward, the English would have expected to be attacked, would have gone back into their Lines.... Portugal is too far off--I can’t go there myself. The business would take six months, and in that six months everything would be hung up in Europe,’ &c. See Foy’s _Vie Militaire_, pp. 139-40.