The march from Salamanca had been so fatiguing that it was impossible for the troops to proceed without some rest. Junot had arrived there on the 17th of November. On the 18th he sent a reconnoitring party as far as Rosmaninhal, and they returned with intelligence that the country was neither prepared to resist them, nor aware of their approach. ♦THE FRENCH ENTER PORTUGAL.♦ On the 19th, the vanguard passed the frontier, and Junot, with the remainder of the first division of his army, followed the ensuing day. This division consisted of 8,600 men, with 12 field pieces. The second division, moving likewise upon Castello-Branco, entered by Salvaterra and Idanha-a-nova: its cavalry and guns, with the third division and the baggage, were detained some days by the sudden rise of the mountain streams. On the evening of the 20th there was a report in Castello-Branco that the French were at Zebreira: and at six o’clock, when it was hardly known whether the rumour were true or false, a French officer arrived to inform the magistrates that quarters must be made ready for General Laborde and a corps of 3000 men, who would be there in the course of two hours. Junot took up his quarters the next day in the episcopal palace, and manifested sufficient ill-humour that no preparations had been made for entertaining him. ♦THEIR RAPACITY UPON THE MARCH.♦ The adjutants carried off some of the bishop’s valuables, overhauled his library in the hope of finding money concealed there, and not finding what they were in search of, demanded money, and obtained it. One of them, after they had left the city, returned from Sarzedas to borrow a farther sum in Junot’s name; nor was it known whether this was a fraudulent extortion of his own, or a courteous mode of robbery on the part of the general. ♦NEVES, I. 199.♦ The night which the French passed in Castello-Branco is described by the inhabitants as an image of Hell. Junot had pledged his honour for their good conduct; but men and officers were, like their commander, as rapacious and as unprincipled as the government which they served. They were passing through a country where they experienced no resistance, and which they protested they were coming to defend; but they added wanton havoc to the inevitable devastation which is made by the passage of an army; the men pillaged as they went, and the very officers robbed the houses in which they were quartered; olive and other fruit trees were cut down for fuel or to form temporary barracks, houses and churches were plundered; and as if they had been desirous of provoking the Portugueze to some act of violence which might serve as a pretext for carrying into effect the threats which Junot had denounced, ♦NEVES, 196–199.♦ they burnt or mutilated the images in the churches, and threw the wafer to be trodden under foot. ♦CONDUCT AT ABRANTES.♦