The two regiments thus defeated by the Spaniards retired by their left along the saddle-ridge to the flanks of the Rhune, so that Clauzel had now eight regiments concentrated on this great mountain. Two occupied the crest including the highest rock called the Hermitage; four were on the flanks, descending towards Ascain on one hand, and towards Sarre on the other; the remaining two occupied a lower and parallel crest behind called the small Rhune. In this situation they were attacked at four o’clock by Giron’s right wing. The Spaniards first dislodged a small body from a detached pile of crags about musket-shot below the summit, and then assailed the bald staring rocks of the Hermitage itself, endeavouring at the same time to turn it by their right. In both objects they were defeated with loss. The Hermitage was impregnable, the French rolled down stones large enough to sweep away a whole column at once, and the Spaniards resorted to a distant musketry which lasted until night. This day’s fighting cost Taupin’s division two generals and four hundred men killed and wounded, and five hundred prisoners. The loss of the allies was nearly a thousand, of which about five hundred were Spaniards, and the success was not complete, for while the French kept possession of the summit of the Rhune the allies’ new position was insecure. [Sidenote: Plan 6.] The front and the right flank of that great mountain were impregnable, but lord Wellington observing that the left flank, descending towards Sarre, was less inaccessible, concentrated the Spaniards on that side on the 8th, designing a combined attack against the mountain itself, and against the camp of Sarre. At three o’clock in the afternoon the rocks which studded the lower parts of the Rhune slope were assailed by the Spaniards, and at the same time detachments of the seventh division descended from the Puerto de Echallar upon the fort of San Barbe, and other outworks covering the advanced French camp of Sarre. The Andalusians soon won the rocks and an entrenched height that commanded the camp, for Clauzel, too easily alarmed at some slight demonstrations made by the sixth division towards the bridge of Amotz in rear of his left, thought he should be cut off from his great camp, and very suddenly abandoned not only the slope of the mountain but all his advanced works in the basin below, including the fort of San Barbe. His troops were thus concentrated on the height behind Sarre still holding with their right the smaller Rhune, but the consequences of his error were soon made apparent. Wellington immediately established a strong body of the Spanish troops close up to the rocks of the Hermitage, and the two French regiments there, seeing the lower slopes and the fort of San Barbe given up, imagined they also would be cut off, and without orders abandoned the impregnable rocks of the Hermitage and retired in the night to the smaller Rhune. The next morning some of the