I was aroused by a discharge of cannon, and found the camp in commotion. The Spaniards, under Reding and Castanos, had, as the colonel anticipated, fallen upon our line of march at daybreak, and cut off a large portion of the baggage-train. It had been loaded with the church-plate, and general plunder of Cordova; and the avarice of the French had obviously involved them in formidable difficulty. But, even in the universal tumult, the importance of my seizure was not forgotten; and I was ordered to the rear in charge of a guard. The action now began on all sides; the cannonade rapidly deepening on the flank and centre of the French position, and the musketry already beginning to rattle on various points of the line. From the height on which I stood, the whole scene lay beneath my eye; and nothing could have been better worth the speculation of any man--who was not under sentence of being shot as soon as the struggle was over! I was aware of the reputation of the French general. He held a high name among the _braves_ of the imperial army for the last ten years, and he had been foremost everywhere. In the desperate Italian campaign against the Austrians and Russians; in the victorious campaign of Austerlitz; in the sanguinary campaign of Eylau--Dupont was one of the most daring of generals of brigade. But his pillage of Cordova had roused the Spanish wrath into fury; and the effort to carry off his plunder made it impossible for him to resist a vigorous attack, even with his twenty thousand veterans. He had indulged himself in Cordova, until the broken armies of the south had found time to rally; and a force of fifty thousand men was now rushing down upon his centre. The hills, as far as the eye could range, were covered with the armed peasantry, moving like dark clouds over their sides, and descending by thousands to the field. The battle now raged furiously in the centre, and the charges of the French cavalry made fearful gaps in the Spanish battalions. At length, the rising of the dust on the right showed that a strong column was approaching, which might decide the day. My heart beat slow as I saw the tricolor floating above its bayonets. It was the advanced guard, with Dupont at its head--a force of three thousand men, which had returned rapidly on its steps, as soon as the sound of the attack had reached it. It was boldly resisted by the Swiss and Walloon brigades of the Spanish line: but the French fire was heavy, its manoeuvre was daring, and I began to fear for the fate of the day; when a loud explosion, and a hurried movement at the extreme of the French position, turned my eyes to the left wing. There the Spanish attack had swept every thing before it. Brigade after brigade was giving way, and the country was covered with scattered horsemen, infantry retiring in disorder, and broken and captured guns. The peasantry, too, had joined in the pursuit, and the wing seemed utterly ruined. To retrieve this disorder was now