While the French generals were engaged in council, the troops on both sides took some rest, and the English wounded were carried to the rear; but the soldiers were suffering from hunger; the regular service of provisions had ceased for several days, and a few ounces of wheat, in the grain, formed the whole subsistence of men who had fought, and who were yet to fight, so hardly. The Spanish camp was full of confusion and distrust. Cuesta inspired terror, but no confidence; and Albuquerque, whether from conviction or instigated by 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. The aide-de-camp, charged with this message, delivered it to colonel Donkin, and that officer carried it to sir Arthur Wellesley. The latter, seated on the summit of the hill which had been so gallantly contested, was intently watching the movements of the advancing enemy; he listened to this somewhat startling message without so much as turning his head, and then drily answering--“_Very well, you may return to your brigade_,” continued his survey of the French. Donkin retired, filled with admiration of the imperturbable resolution and quick penetration of the man; and, indeed, sir Arthur’s conduct was, throughout that day, such as became a general upon whose vigilance and intrepidity the fate of fifty thousand men depended. BATTLE OF TALAVERA. The dispositions of the French were soon completed. Ruffin’s division, on the extreme right, was destined to cross the valley, and, moving by the foot of the mountain, to turn the British left. Villatte’s orders were to menace the contested height with one brigade, and to guard the valley with another, which, being strengthened by a battalion of grenadiers, connected Ruffin’s movement with the main attack. Lapisse, supported by Latour Maubourg’s dragoons, and by the king’s reserve, was instructed to pass the ravine in front of the English centre, and to fall, with half his infantry, upon Sherbrooke’s division, while the other half, connecting its attack with Villatte’s brigade, mounted the hill, and made a third effort to master that important point. Milhaud’s dragoons were left on the main road, opposite Talavera, to keep the Spaniards in check; but the rest of the heavy cavalry was brought into the centre, behind general Sebastiani, who, with the fourth corps, was to assail the right of the British army. A part of the French light cavalry supported Villatte’s brigade in the valley, and a part remained in reserve. A number of guns were distributed among the divisions, but the principal mass remained on the hill, with the reserve of light cavalry; where, also, the duke of Belluno stationed himself, to direct the movements of the first corps.