[128] _Correspondance_, no. 17,531. ‘Le siège de Cadix n’aurait pas couru les chances qu’il vient de courir si, en partant pour l’Estrémadure, le duc de Dalmatie avait mis le corps du général Sebastiani et la division Godinot sous les ordres du Maréchal duc de Bellune [Victor] ... il aurait alors eu trois fois plus de troupes qu’il n’en aurait fallu.’ [129] ‘Soult vient de me faire une grande sottise: il aurait dû laisser à Victor le commandement de toutes les troupes d’Andalousie. Il ne l’a pas fait, de peur que Victor ne fût aussi grand que lui.’ Foy’s interview with Napoleon in his _Vie Militaire_, p. 140. Soult was fully aware of all the possible perils of his absence. Apparently he thought Sebastiani was in the greater danger, for he requisitioned only a few cavalry and artillery from the 4th Corps, and left it practically intact to defend the province of Granada against the Army of Murcia. As to Seville, he considered that it could only be endangered by Ballasteros, and for that reason did his best to destroy that general’s division, by causing Gazan to hunt it as far as the borders of Portugal--a diversion which nearly wrecked the Estremaduran expedition for lack of infantry[130]. When Gazan had driven Ballasteros over the Guadiana, after the action of Castillejos (January 25), the Marshal thought that the Spaniard was out of the game, and no longer in a position to do harm--in which he erred, for this irrepressible enemy was back in Andalusia within a few weeks, and was actually threatening Seville early in March. [130] See above, p. 33.