For a time Marshal Jourdan took command of the French army that supported King Joseph, in Spain. On the 21st of June he was defeated by the English at Vittoria. Joseph narrowly escaped being captured. Marshal Soult succeeded Jourdan. In a proclamation to his army, he attributed the defeats to the cowardice and incapacity of those who had preceded him in the command: a sad presumption which was soon to receive its chastisement. The conflicts of Roncesvalles, on the 28th and 31st of July, 1813, forced the Marshal to fall back upon the Bidassoa, without being able to make even an effort for the relief of the besieged city of San Sebastian, which fell into the hands of the English, on the 8th of September. On the 7th of October Wellington, in his turn, crossed the Bidassoa, and while Pampeluna surrendered to the Anglo-Spanish forces, on the 31st of October, Marshal Soult was forced within his lines at St. Jean de Luz. French territory was invaded. Delivered in advance to the anger of its enemies, it was to suffer cruel reprisals of which France has not even yet ceased to bear the weight or pay the price. Napoleon defended Champagne and Lorraine; calling to his aid the troops from Spain, as well as the remnants of the German army, and blaming Marshal Augereau, who was slow in joining him. More than ever master, and more than ever imperious, he continued indomitable and inexhaustible in the fecundity of his genius. "The Minister of War has shown me your letter of the 16th," wrote Napoleon to Augereau, his old comrade of the revolution: "that letter has grieved me deeply. What! six hours after receiving the first troops from Spain, and you are not already on the march! Were six hours of repose necessary? I gained the battle of Nangis with a brigade of dragoons from Spain, who had not been off their horses since they left Bayonne. The six battalions of Nîmes lack, you say, clothing and equipments, and are inexperienced. What an excuse to make me, Augereau! I have destroyed 80,000 of the enemy, with battalions composed of conscripts, having no cartridge boxes, and but half clothed. {438} There is no money, you say; and where do you expect to find money? We will have that, only when we have torn our receipts from the hands of the enemy. You lack horses? Take them everywhere. You have no magazines? That is too ridiculous! I order you to take up your line of march within twelve hours, after you receive this letter. If you are still the Augereau of Castiglione, obey this order; but if your sixty years weigh too heavily upon you, turn over your command to the oldest of your general officers. The country is threatened, and in danger. It can only be saved by audacity and good-will, and not by vain temporizations. You ought to have a nucleus of more than six thousand veteran troops; I have not as many, and I have moreover destroyed three armies, made 40,000 prisoners, taken two hundred cannons, and three times saved the capital. The enemy fly in all