Masséna’s dispositions, as can be seen at a glance, were purely defensive. They could not be otherwise, when his army had dwindled down by the beginning of December to 45,000 efficient sabres and bayonets, while his hospitals were encumbered by 8,000 or 9,000 sick. All that he aspired to do was to hold on in the Santarem-Rio Mayor position, pinning his adversary down to the neighbourhood of Lisbon, till he should be restored to the power of taking the offensive once more, by the arrival of reinforcements; his aid must come on one side from Soult and the Army of Andalusia, on the other from Drouet’s 9th Corps, whose services had been promised to him by the Emperor long before the invasion of Portugal began. But down to the end of the year he had not the slightest breath of information as to whether this assistance was close at hand, or whether it had, perchance, not even begun to move in his direction. Since he had cut himself loose from the frontier of Spain in September, not a single dispatch had reached him, not even a secret emissary had penetrated to his head quarters. For all that he knew Napoleon might be dead, or engaged in a new war with some continental enemy. It is an astonishing testimony to the efficiency of the screen of Portuguese Ordenança and militia, which Wellington had cast round the French army, to find that nothing had slipped through. And the Marshal’s attempts to send out news of himself had been almost equally well foiled; all his messengers had been intercepted save Foy, who (as it will be remembered) had forced his way over the unfrequented Estrada Nova road on October 31st[11]. And Foy had got through to Ciudad Rodrigo because he had been given such a large escort--600 men--that no mere gathering of local Ordenança could stop him. [11] The next messenger who got through was Major Casabianca, who started on January 21st with 400 men, and safely reached Rodrigo. See Fririon’s _Journal of the Campaign of Portugal_, p. 129.