Meanwhile Vedel, informed, in the night of the 20th, by Dupont, of this unexpected change, had retreated to Carolina. Castaños hearing of it, menaced Dupont with death if Vedel did not return; and the latter understanding that he was included in the capitulation, came back to Baylen and surrendered. [Sidenote: Foy’s History.] Thus, above eighteen thousand French soldiers laid down their arms on the 22d, before a raw army incapable of resisting half that number if the latter had been led by an able man. Nor did this end the disgraceful affair; but, as if to show to what extent folly and fear combined will carry men, captain Villontrey’s, with a Spanish escort, passed the Sierra Morena, and traversing La Mancha to within a short distance of Toledo, gathered up the escorts, the hospital attendants, and the detachments left by Dupont in that province, and constituting them prisoners under the capitulation, sent them to Andujar; and this unheard of proceeding was quietly submitted to by men who belonged to that army which for fifteen years had been the terror of Europe--a proof how much the firmness of soldiers depends upon the character of their immediate chief. [Illustration: _Explanatory Sketch_ of the BATTLE OF BAYLEN. _London. Published March 1828, by John Murray, Albermarle Street._] The capitulation, shameful in itself, was shamefully broken. The French troops, instead of being sent to France, were maltreated, and numbers of them murdered in cold blood, especially at Lebrixa, where above eighty officers were massacred in the most cowardly manner. Although armed only with their swords, they kept the assassins for some time at bay, and gathering in a company, upon an open space in the town, endeavoured to save their lives, but a fire from the neighbouring houses was kept up until the last of those unfortunate gentlemen fell. [Sidenote: Victoires et Conquêtes.] No distinction was made between Dupont’s and Vedel’s troops; all who survived the march to Cadiz, after being exposed to every species of indignity, were cast into some hulks, where the greatest number perished in lingering torments: a few hundreds, rendered desperate by their situation, contrived to escape, some years afterwards, by cutting the cables of their prison-ship, and drifting, under a heavy fire, and in the midst of a storm, upon a lee-shore, where two-thirds of them were picked up by their countrymen at that time blockading Cadiz. Dupont himself was permitted to return to France, and to take with him all the generals; and it is curious that general Privé, who had remonstrated strongly against the capitulation, and pressed Dupont on the field to force a passage through Reding’s army, was the only one left behind.