Of the topography of Ciudad Rodrigo we have already spoken at some length, when dealing with its siege by Ney in 1810. The French occupation had made no essential change to its character. The only additions to its works made during the last eighteen months were the erection of a small fort on the summit of the Greater Teson, and the reinforcing by masonry of the three large convents in the suburb of San Francisco, which the Spaniards had already used as places of strength. The first-named work was a redoubt (named Redout Renaud, from the governor whom Julian Sanchez had kidnapped in October): it mounted three guns, had a ditch and palisades, and was built for a garrison of seventy men. Its gorge contained a sally-port opening towards the town, and was closed with palisades only. Four guns on the stone roof of the fortified convent of San Francisco, and many more in the northern front of the _enceinte_, bore upon it, and were intended to make access to it dangerous and costly. The breaches made during Ney’s siege, in the walls facing the Tesons, had been well built up: but the new masonry, clearly distinguishable by its fresh colour from the older stone, had not set over well, and proved less hard when battered. The garrison, supplied by the Army of the North, was not so numerous as it should have been, particularly when it was intended to hold not only the _enceinte_ of the small circular town but the straggling suburb outside. It consisted of a battalion each of the 34th Léger and the 113th Line, from the division of Thiébault (that long commanded in 1810-11 by Serras), making about 1,600 men, with two companies of Artillery and a small detachment of sappers--the whole at the commencement of the siege did not amount to quite 2,000 of all ranks, even including the sick in the hospital. The governor was General Barrié, an officer who had been thrust into the post much contrary to his will, because he was the only general of brigade available at Salamanca when his predecessor Renaud was taken by Julian Sanchez[174]. The strength of the garrison had been deliberately kept low by Dorsenne, because of the immense difficulty of supplying it with provisions. The first convoy for its support had only been introduced by bringing up 60,000 men, at the time of the fighting about El Bodon in September: the second only by Thiébault’s risky expedient on November 2nd. [174] For details of this see Thiébault’s _Mémoires_, iv. p. 537, where Barrié’s frank dismay at his appointment, and the arguments used to overcome it, are described at length.