Information of St. Cyr’s march, as I have already observed, had been transmitted to Vives on the 11th, and there was time for him to have carried the bulk of his forces to the Tordera before the French could pass that river; but intelligence of the battle of Tudela, and of the appearance of the French near Zaragoza, arrived at the same moment, and the Spanish general betrayed the greatest weakness and indecision, at one moment resolving to continue before Barcelona, at another designing to march against St. Cyr. He had, on the 9th, sent Reding with six guns, six hundred cavalry, and one thousand infantry, to take the command in the Ampurdan; but, the 12th, after receiving Lazan’s report, he reinforced Reding, who was still at Granollers, and directed him upon Cardadeu. The 14th, he ordered Francisco Milans to march by Mattaro and Arenas de Mar, to examine the coast road, and, if the enemy was not in that line, to repair also to Cardadeu. The 15th, Milans, as we have seen, was beaten at St. Celoni; but, in the night, he rallied his whole division on the heights of Cordera, thus flanking the left of the French forces at Llinas. A council of war was held on the 13th. Caldagues advised that four thousand Migueletes should be left to observe Duhesme, and that the rest of the army should march at once to fight St. Cyr. Good and soldier-like advice; but Vives was loth to abandon the siege of Barcelona, and, adopting half-measures, left Caldagues, with the right wing of the army, to watch Duhesme, and carried the centre and the left, by the route of Granollers, to the heights between Cardadeu and Llinas, where (exclusive of Milan’s division) he united, in the night of the 15th, about eight thousand regulars, besides several thousand Somatenes. Duhesme immediately occupied the posts abandoned by Vives, and thus separated him from Caldagues. [Sidenote: St. Cyr.] St. Cyr’s position, on the morning of the 16th, would have been dangerous, if he had been opposed by any but Spanish generals and Spanish troops. Vives and those about him, irresolute and weak as they were in action, were not deficient in boasting words; they called the French army, in derision, “_the succour_;” and, in allusion to the battle of Baylen, announced that a second “_bull-fight_,” in which Reding was again the “_matador_,” would be exhibited. But Dupont and St. Cyr were men of a different stamp: the latter justly judging that the Spaniards were not troops to stand the shock of a good column, united his army in one solid mass, at day-break on the 16th, and marched straight against the centre of the enemy, giving orders that the head of the column should go headlong on, without either firing or forming line. BATTLE OF CARDADEU.