[Sidenote: Napoleon’s notes. Appendix, Nos. 4 and 5.] [Sidenote: S. Journal of the king’s operations. MS.] With such a force, and so assisted, there was nothing in Spain, turn which way he would, capable of opposing king Joseph’s march; but the incongruity of a camp with a court is always productive of indecision and of error; the truncheon does not fit every hand, and the French army soon felt the inconvenience of having at its head a monarch who was not a warrior. Joseph remained on the defensive; but he did not understand the force of the maxim, “_that offensive movements are the foundation of a good defence_.” He held Bilbao, but he abandoned Tudela contrary to the advice of the generals who had conducted the operations on that side, and in its place Milagro, a small town, situated upon the rivers Arga and Aragon, just above their confluence with the Ebro, was by him chosen as the position of battle for the left wing. As long as Bessieres held Burgos in force, his cavalry commanded the valley of the Douero, menaced Palencia and Valladolid, and scouring the plains, kept Blake and Cuesta in check. Instead of reinforcing a post so advantageous, the king relinquished Burgos as a point beyond his line of defence, and Bessieres’ troops were posted in successive divisions behind it, as far as Puente Lara on the Ebro. Ney’s force lined that river down to Logroña; the reserve was quartered behind Miranda; and Trevino, a small obscure place, was chosen as the point of battle, for the right and centre. In this disadvantageous situation the army, with some trifling changes, remained from the middle of August until late in September. During that time the artillery and carriages of transport were repaired, magazines were collected, the cavalry remounted, and the preparations made for an active campaign when the reinforcements should arrive from Germany. The line of resistance thus offered to the Spaniards, evinced a degree of timidity which the relative strength of the armies by no means justified; the left of the French evidently leaned towards the great communication with France, and seemed to refuse the support of Pampeluna. Tudela was abandoned, and Burgos resigned to the enterprise of the Spaniards. All this indicated fear, a disposition to retreat if the enemy advanced. The king complained with what extreme difficulty he obtained intelligence; yet he neglected by forward movements to feel for his adversaries. Wandering as it were in the dark, he gave a loose to his imagination, and conjuring up a phantom of Spanish strength, which had no real existence, anxiously waited for the development of their power, while they were exposing their weakness by a succession of the most egregious blunders.