It was not till late in the afternoon of the 7th that Wellington, as has been already mentioned, came to the rather tardy conclusion that ‘it was now full time that the plunder of Badajoz should cease.’ He sent in Power’s Portuguese brigade to clear out those of the plunderers who had not already gone back exhausted to their camps, and erected a gallows in the cathedral square, for the hanging of any criminals who might be detected lingering on for further outrages. Authorities differ as to whether the Provost Marshal did, or did not, put his power in action: the balance of evidence seems to show that the mere threat sufficed to bring the sack to an end. The men were completely exhausted: Napier remarks that ‘the tumult rather subsided than was quelled.’ SECTION XXXII: CHAPTER V OPERATIONS OF THE FRENCH DURING THE SIEGE OF BADAJOZ Before proceeding to demonstrate the wide-spreading results of the fall of the great Estremaduran fortress, it is necessary to follow the movements of the French armies which had been responsible for its safety. Soult had been before Cadiz when, on March 11, he received news from Drouet that troops were arriving at Elvas from the North, and on March 20 the more definite information that Wellington had moved out in force on the 14th, and invested Badajoz on the 16th. The Marshal’s long absence from his head-quarters at Seville at this moment, when he had every reason to suspect that the enemy’s next stroke would be in his own direction, is curious. Apparently his comparative freedom from anxiety had two causes. The first was his confidence that Badajoz, with its excellent governor and its picked garrison, could be relied upon to make a very long defence. The second was that he was fully persuaded that when the time of danger arrived he could count on Marmont’s help--as he had in June 1811. On February 7 he wrote to his colleague[289] that he had just heard of the fall of Rodrigo, that Wellington’s next movement would naturally be against Badajoz, and that he was glad to learn that Montbrun’s divisions, on their return from Alicante, were being placed in the valley of the Tagus. ‘I see with pleasure that your excellency has given him orders to get in touch with the Army of the South. As long as this communication shall exist, the enemy will not dare to make a push against Badajoz, because at his first movement we can join our forces and march against him for a battle. I hope that it may enter into your plans to leave a corps between the Tagus and the Guadiana, the Truxillo road, and the Sierra de Guadalupe, where it can feed, and keep in touch with the troops which I keep in the Serena [the district about Medellin, Don Benito, and Zalamea, where Daricau was cantoned]. I am persuaded that, when the campaigning season begins, the enemy will do all he can to seize Badajoz, because he dare attempt nothing in Castille so long as that place offers us a base from which to invade Portugal and fall upon his