On January 27th the news of the advance of Wellington against Ciudad Rodrigo had at last reached Paris--eight days after the fortress had fallen. It caused the issue of new orders by the Emperor, all exquisitely inappropriate when they reached Marmont’s hands on February 10th. The Marshal had been contemplating the tiresome results of the storm of the fortress for nearly three weeks, but Napoleon’s orders presupposed much spare time before Rodrigo would be in any danger: Dorsenne is to stop the march of the Guards towards France, and to bring up all the forces he can to help the Army of Portugal: Montbrun will be back at Madrid by January 18 [on which day he was really in the middle of the kingdom of Murcia], and at the front in Leon before February 1st. After his arrival the Army of Portugal will be able to take up its definitive line of action. Finally, there is a stab at Marmont, ‘the English apparently have advanced in order to make a diversion to hamper the siege of Valencia; they only did so because they had got information of the great strength of the detachment which the Army of Portugal made in that direction[233].’ [233] Napoleon to Berthier, Jan. 27. The Marshal could only reply by saying that the orders were all out of date, that he had (as directed) given up Bonnet’s division to the Army of the North, and that, Ciudad Rodrigo having fallen far earlier than any one had expected, and long before any sufficient relieving force could be collected, he had been unable to save it, and had now cantoned his army (minus Bonnet) with four divisions in the valley of the Douro and three in the valley of the Tagus, in expectation of an approaching move on the part of Wellington towards Badajoz. These dispositions had not long been completed when another dispatch arrived from Paris, dated February 11th, in which the Emperor censured once more all his lieutenant’s actions, and laid down for him a new strategical policy from which he was forbidden to swerve.