While the French chiefs were thus engaged in council, the wounded were carried to the rear on both sides; but the English soldiers were suffering from hunger, regular service of provisions had ceased for several days, and a few ounces of wheat in the grain formed the subsistence of men who had fought and were yet to fight so hardly. The Spanish camp was full of confusion and distrust. Cuesta inspired terror by his ferocity, but no confidence; and Albuquerque, from conviction or momentary anger, just as the French were coming on to the final attack, sent one of his staff to inform the English commander that Cuesta was betraying him. This message was first delivered to Colonel Donkin, who carried it to Sir Arthur, then seated on the hill intently watching the movements of the advancing enemy; he listened without turning his head, and drily answering--_Very well, you may return to your brigade_--continued his survey of the French. Such was his imperturbable resolution and quick penetration, and his conduct throughout the day was such as became a general upon whose vigilance and intrepidity the fate of fifty thousand men depended. The dispositions of the French were soon completed. Ruffin’s division, on the extreme right, was destined to cross the valley and move by the foot of the mountain to turn the British left. Villatte was to menace the key hill with one brigade, and guard the valley with another, thus connecting Ruffin’s movement with the main attack. Lapisse, supported by Latour Maubourg’s dragoons and the king’s reserve, was to fall with half his infantry upon Sherbrooke; the other half, connecting its attack with Villatte’s brigade, was to make a third effort to master the twice-contested hill. Milhaud’s dragoons were placed in front of Talavera to keep Cuesta in check; the rest of the heavy cavalry was brought into the centre behind Sebastiani, who was to assail the right of the British army. Part of the French light cavalry supported Villatte’s brigade in the valley, part remained in reserve, and many guns were distributed among the divisions; but the principal mass remained on Victor’s hill with the reserve of light cavalry, where also the Duke of Belluno took post to direct the movements of his corps. BATTLE OF TALAVERA. (July, 1809.) From nine o’clock in the morning until mid-day there was no appearance of hostility, the weather was intensely hot, and the troops on both sides descended and mingled without fear or suspicion to quench their thirst at a brook separating the positions; but at one o’clock the French soldiers were seen to gather round their eagles, and the roll of drums was heard along their whole line. Half an hour later, Joseph’s guards, the reserve, and Sebastiani’s corps were descried in movement to join Victor’s corps, and at two o’clock, the table-land and the height on the French right, even to the great valley, were covered with dark lowering masses of men.