While Marmont was marching up in the early days of January to occupy his newly-designated positions, Dorsenne was employed in withdrawing his troops eastward, away from the neighbourhood of Wellington, towards the province of Burgos. He himself stopped behind at Valladolid, to see Marmont and hand over in person the charge of the districts which he was ordered to evacuate. His view of the situation at the moment may be judged by an extract from a letter which he directed to Marmont on January 5[207]. [207] Marmont, _Correspondance_, book xv _bis_, p. 287. ‘I have the honour to enclose herewith two letters dated on the 1st and 3rd instant from General Thiébault at Salamanca. I attach no credence to their contents, for during the last six months I have been receiving perpetually similar reports.... If, contrary to my opinion, the English have really made some tentative movements on Ciudad Rodrigo, and if Julian Sanchez has tried to cut our communication with that place, I can only attribute it to your recent movement on Valencia. In that case, the unforeseen reappearance of your Excellency here may make the enemy change his plan of operations, and may prove harmful to him.’ Thiébault had cried ‘Wolf!’ too often to please Dorsenne, and the latter had no real apprehension that Wellington was already on the move. No more had Marmont. On arriving at Valladolid on January 13th he wrote to Berthier (five days after the trenches were opened at Rodrigo!), ‘It is probable that the English may be on the move at the end of February, and then I shall have need of all my troops: I have, therefore, told Montbrun to start on his backward march towards me before the end of January[208].’ By the end of January Rodrigo had already been for twelve days in the hands of the British army. [208] Ibid., p. 291. And if Dorsenne and Marmont were blind to the actual situation, so, most of all, was their master. The dispatch which gave over the charge of the kingdom of Leon to Marmont contains the following paragraph: