Soult had however no intention of renewing the offensive. He had now lost many thousand men in battle, and the old soldiers remaining did not exceed seventy-nine thousand present under arms including officers and artillery-men. Of this number the garrisons absorbed about thirteen thousand, leaving sixty-six thousand in the field, whereas the allies, counting Mina’s and Del Parque’s troops, now at Tudela, Pampeluna, and the Val de Irati, exceeded one hundred thousand, seventy-three thousand, including officers, sergeants, and artillery-men, being British and Portuguese. And this was below the calculation of the French general, for deceived by the exaggerated reports which the Spaniards always made of their forces, he thought Del Parque had brought up twenty thousand men and that there were one hundred and forty thousand combatants in his front. But it was not so, and as conscripts of a good description were now joining the French army rapidly, and the national guards of the Pyrenees were many, it was in the number of soldiers rather than of men, that the English general had the advantage. In this state of affairs Soult’s policy was to maintain a strict defensive, under cover of which the spirit of the troops might be revived, the country in the rear organized, and the conscripts disciplined and hardened to war. The loss of the Lower Bidassoa was in a political view mischievous to him, it had an injurious effect upon the spirit of the frontier departments, and gave encouragement to the secret partizans of the Bourbons; but in a military view it was a relief. The great development of the mountains bordering the Bidassoa had rendered their defence difficult; while holding them he had continual fear that his line would be pierced and his army suddenly driven beyond the Adour. His position was now more concentrated. [Sidenote: Plan 6.] The right, under Reille, formed two lines. One across the royal road on the fortified heights of Urogne and the camp of the Sans Culottes; the other in the entrenched camps of Bourdegain and Belchena, covering St. Jean de Luz and barring the gorges of Olhette and Jollimont. The centre under Clauzel was posted on the ridges between Ascain and Amotz holding the smaller Rhune in advance; but one division was retained by Soult in the camp of Serres on the right of the Nivelle, overhanging Ascain. To replace it one of D’Erlon’s divisions crossed to the left of the Nivelle and reinforced Clauzel’s left flank above Sarre. Villatte’s reserve was about St. Jean de Luz but having the Italian brigade in the camp of Serres. D’Erlon’s remaining divisions continued in their old position, the right connected with Clauzel’s line by the bridge of Amotz; the left, holding the Choupera and Mondarin mountains, bordered on the Nive.