At eight o’clock the fog cleared away, and the first beams of the sun and the certainty of victory, flashed together on the French soldiers; for the horsemen were already surrounding the Spanish left; and in the centre, infantry, cavalry, and guns, heaped together, were waving to and fro in disorder; while the right having fallen away from San Christoval was unsupported. In one moment, Girard, with three battalions, stood between the Spaniards and the fort; the artillery roared on both sides; and the French bore forward as one man to the attack: six battalions pressed the centre; Girard moved perpendicularly on the right, and Latour Maubourg charged the left. Thus surrounded, Mendizabel’s people instinctively crowding together on the centre, resisted, for some time, by their inert weight; but the French infantry closed with a destroying musketry, the horsemen rode in with loose bridles, and the Spaniards were shaken, divided, and slaughtered. Their cavalry fled outright, even Madden’s Portuguese, either from panic, or from hatred of their allies, disregarded alike his exhortations and example, and shamefully turned their backs. At ten o’clock the fight was over; Virues was taken, Mendizabel and Carrera escaped with difficulty, España alone made good his retreat to Campo Mayor with two thousand men; a few more reached Elvas, three thousand got into Badajos, by the bridge, and nine hundred bodies strewed the field: eight thousand, including armed followers, were made prisoners; and guns, colours, muskets, ammunition, baggage, all, fell into the enemy’s hands. It was a disastrous and a shameful defeat. In the depth of winter, Soult, with a small force, had passed two difficult rivers, carried a strong position, and annihilated an army which had been two years in constant service. Mendizabel, instead of destroying the bridge over the Gebora, should have cast others, that he might freely issue to attack the French while crossing the Guadiana; he should have opposed them again in passing the Gebora; or he might have passed through Badajos, and fallen on the troops in the trenches, with his whole army, while Soult was still entangled between the rivers.