He had at this moment with him, in the lines before Saguntum, 35 battalions of foot (of which the three Neapolitan units under Compère were mere skeletons, with little over a thousand men between them), with 15 squadrons of horse and 36 field-guns. He left behind him, to maintain the siege-works before the fortress, two battalions of the 117th line from Habert’s division, and Balathier’s Italian brigade, making four battalions more. The weak Neapolitan brigade of Compère, only 1,400 men, even with its cavalry included, was placed in support of the blockading force, at Gillet and Petres, to watch the road from Segorbe, by which some outlying Spanish detachment might possibly attempt to communicate with the garrison of Saguntum. This left for the line of battle 26 battalions--six of Habert’s, eleven of Harispe’s, four of Palombini’s Italians, and five of Robert’s reserve brigade. The total amounted to about 12,000 infantry, while the whole of the cavalry, except the two Neapolitan squadrons, was put in the field to the amount of some 1,800 sabres. Counting the gunners of the six batteries of artillery, Suchet’s fighting force was not much over 14,000 men. He had left 4,000, besides the gunners of the siege-train and the sappers, to deal with the garrison of Saguntum. This was little more than half of Blake’s numbers, for the Spanish general--as we have seen--was marching forward with 27,000 men in line. That Suchet gladly took the risk sufficiently shows his opinion of the quality of the greater part of the Valencian army. It seems, we must confess, rather hazardous to have left 4,000 men in the blockading corps, when forces were so unequal. In a similar case Beresford at Albuera took every man out of the trenches, and fought with his whole army. Andriani’s garrison was not numerous enough to execute any really dangerous sally in the rear, and was so constricted, in its precipitous fastness, that it could not easily come down or deploy itself. Perhaps Suchet may have feared, however, that it would take the opportunity of absconding by some postern, if it were not shut in upon all sides. But there were to be moments during the battle when the Marshal would gladly have had the assistance of two or three more battalions of steady troops.