Monsieur le Colonel Hilaire Maxime Lucien de Ferussat, of the 121st regiment of the line, felt pardonably annoyed when he found that his corps, or what remained of it, had been selected, with another of Morlot’s regiments, to escort the Spanish prisoners to Bayonne. The duty involved hard marching, and brought no glory, and Glory, as he was never tired of declaiming at his mess-table, was the sole object for which every true Frenchman should live and die. He had not distinguished himself very greatly in the operations of the siege; indeed it was whispered among his fellow-officers, who did not love him, that his selection for the escort duty was by no means a mark of Marshal Lannes’ favour. He himself, however, seemed quite unconscious of everything except that he had a grievance in being thus shunted for some weeks off the highroad to fame, and, as was only to be expected, the wretched prisoners in his charge bore the brunt of his displeasure. They were physically incapable of prolonged marches, but that was nothing to monsieur le colonel. He was determined to reach Bayonne as soon as possible. He played the drover with the unfortunate Spaniards, and many of them succumbed to fatigue and illness on the road. The men of his escort, adopting his attitude, and themselves resenting the rapidity of the march after all their hardships, were in no mood to spare the wretches committed to their charge, and many a prod with the butt-end of a musket, or the more lethal bayonet, quickened the steps of laggards until they could endure no longer, but dropped and died. Mounted on a fine Andalusian charger, Colonel de Ferussat rode up and down the line, roundly abusing the non-commissioned officers of his party whenever he saw any tendency to straggling among the prisoners. "Peste!" he said to one sergeant, in charge of a herd of some 200 miserable skeletons; "if you value your chevrons you will step out more briskly. No more of this lagging, or, saprelotte! I’ll reduce you." A moment or two later he turned to the captain of a company: "How long, monsieur le capitaine," he cried, "how long do you propose to spend in herding these pigs of Spaniards? Your men are dawdling as if they were sweethearting in the Bois." Such remarks caused a quickening all along the column until the lost ground was made up. With such a commander it was not surprising that the men took short measures to save themselves trouble. Many a prisoner who found the pace too fast, and sank down with a groan, was spared further suffering. One bullet was usually enough.