Joseph, after examining the position from left to right, demanded of Jourdan and Victor if he should deliver a general battle. The former replied that when the great valley and the mountain were unoccupied on the 27th, Sir Arthur Wellesley’s attention should have been drawn to the right by a feint on the Spaniards: that during the night the whole army should have been silently placed in column at the entrance of the great valley, ready at daybreak to form line of battle to its left on a new front, and so have attacked. Such a movement would have compelled the allies to change their front also, and during the operation they might have been assailed with success. This project could not then be executed. The English, aware of their mistake, had occupied the valley and the mountain, and were, front and flank alike, inattackable. _Hence, the only prudent line was to take up a position on the Alberche, and await the effect of Soult’s operations on the English rear._ Victor opposed this counsel. He engaged to carry the hill on the English left notwithstanding his former failures, provided Sebastiani would attack the right and centre at the same moment, finishing his argument thus: “_If such a combination failed, it was time to renounce making war._”[8] The king was embarrassed. His own opinion coincided with Jourdan’s, yet he feared Victor would make the emperor think a great opportunity had been lost, and while thus wavering a despatch arrived from Soult, saying his forces could only reach Placencia between the 2nd and 5th of August; intelligence also came that a detachment from the army of Venegas had appeared near Toledo, and his van was approaching Aranjuez. This made the king tremble for Madrid. The stores, reserve artillery, and general hospitals of all the armies in Spain were there, and the tolls received at the gates formed almost the only pecuniary resource of his court: so narrowly did Napoleon reduce the expenditure of the war. These considerations overpowered his judgment; rejecting the better counsel, he resolved to succour the capital, yet first to try the chance of battle.