But opposition, even on the part of the elements, only roused the emperor’s indomitable energy. The gale was raging its fiercest, men and horses were being hurled over precipices by the force of the wind. The leading battalions had actually turned back and were making confusion worse confounded, when Napoleon appeared. Addressing the soldiers, he announced that he meant to overtake the British at all costs. He set thousands of men to clear the drifts, others to beat down the snow into a hard road, over which the artillery, harnessed with double teams, crawled painfully northward. He ordered the members of each infantry section to link arms and thus help each other along the perilous mountain way. He dismounted the cavalry, and used their horses to haul the guns. Then, gathering his staff about him, he bade them lock their arms, and himself led the way, walking arm in arm with Lannes and Duroc. Thus, in the teeth of wind, snow, and ice they pushed up the wild mountain steeps. Half-way up, the marshals and generals, who wore jack-boots, were too much exhausted to move another step. Nothing daunted, Napoleon had himself hoisted on a gun, and sat there astride. He called to his marshals to do the same; and thus, after four hours battling with the elements, the grotesque cavalcade reached the convent on the summit, where, with food and wine, the rigours of the march were forgotten. It was in this spirit of fierce determination that the great emperor, sparing himself as little as his troops, strained every nerve to accomplish the end he had in view—the destruction of Moore’s gallant little army. If La Romana’s confidential agents had been napping, Moore might indeed have beaten Soult, but only to find himself enveloped by a force triple his own in numbers, commanded by the most brilliant soldier of the age. Fortunately, information had reached La Romana, and through him Moore, in time. At the moment when Napoleon arrived at Villacastin, only some three marches distant, Moore was countermanding the advance on Sahagun. That moment marked the ebb of Napoleon’s fortunes. Hitherto he had pursued his wonderful career with scarcely a check; but the decision of Moore on that December evening was the signal for the break-up of Napoleon’s power; it was the step that saved Europe. It diverted the emperor from his immediate purpose of conquest, and engaged his huge armies in a fruitless and exhausting chase; it gave Spain time to bethink herself and rise as a nation. Her rising set an example to Europe, by which Austria and Prussia slowly profited, and which led Russia, three years later, to that spirited defiance which burnt Moscow and brought destruction upon the finest army in the world.