To the officers of the allies all looked prosperous, they were impatient for the signal of battle, and many complained that the French had been permitted to retreat from Christoval; had Wellington been finally forced back to Portugal, his reputation would have been grievously assailed by his own people. The majority, peering forward with misty political vision, overlooked the difficulties close at hand, but their general was fretted with care and mortification, for all cross and evil circumstances seemed to combine against him. The Spanish coöperation had failed in all quarters, the enemy in front was growing stronger, Soult was seriously menacing Cadiz, and the king was said to have been joined by Drouet; the Portuguese troops were deserting in great numbers from misery; the English government had absurdly and perniciously interfered with the supply of the military chest; there was no money and the personal resources of Wellington alone kept the army in its forward position. “I have never,” said he, “been in such distress as at present, and some serious misfortune must happen if the government do not attend seriously to the subject and supply us regularly with money. The arrears and distresses of the Portuguese government are a joke to ours, and if our credit was not better than theirs we should certainly starve. As it is, if we don’t find means to pay our bills for butcher’s meat there will be an end to the war at once.” Thus stript as it were to the skin, he was going once more to hide his nakedness in the mountains of Portugal, when Marmont, proud of his own unripened skill, and perhaps, from the experience of San Christoval, undervaluing his adversary’s tactics; desirous also, it was said, to gain a victory without the presence of a king; Marmont, pushed on by fate, madly broke the chain which restrained his enemy’s strength. To understand the remarkable movements which were now about to commence, it must be borne in mind that the French army, while the harvest was on the ground, had no regard to lines of communication; it had supports on all sides, and the troops were taught to reap the standing corn, and grind it themselves if their cavalry could not seize flour in the villages. This organization, approaching the ancient Roman military perfection, baffled the irregular, and threw the regular force of the allies entirely upon the defensive; their flanks once turned a retreat must follow to save the communications; but the French offered no point for retaliation. Wherefore, with a force composed of four different nations, Wellington was to make difficult evolutions in an open country, his only chances of success being the casual errors of his adversary, an able general, who knew the country perfectly and had troops well disciplined, and of one nation. The game would have been quite unequal if the English had not been so strong in cavalry.