The egregious folly which dictated this proposition was thus checked, and in December the new Cortez decided that he should retain the command of the armies and the regency be bound to fulfil its predecessor’s engagements. Nevertheless so deeply had he been offended by the libels relative to San Sebastian that a private letter to his brother terminated thus:—“_It will rest with the king’s government to determine what they will do upon a consideration of all the circumstances of the case, but if I was to decide I would not keep the army in Spain for one hour._” And to many other persons at different times he expressed his fears and conviction that the cause was lost and that he should fail at last. It was under these, and other enormous difficulties he carried on his military operations. It was with an enemy at his back more to be dreaded than the foe in his front that he invaded the south of France; and that is the answer to those French writers who have described him as being at the head of more than two hundred thousand well-furnished soldiers, supported by a well-organized insurrection of the Spanish people, unembarrassed in his movements, and luxuriously rioting in all the resources of the Peninsula and of England. BOOK XXIII. CHAPTER I. WAR IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE. [Sidenote: 1813. November.] While Pampeluna held out, Soult laboured to complete his works of defence, especially the entrenched camp of St. Jean Pied de Port, that he might be free to change the theatre of war to Aragon. He pretended to entertain this project as late as November; but he must have secretly renounced all hope before that period, because the snows of an early and severe winter had rendered even the passes of the Lower Pyrenees impracticable in October. Meanwhile his political difficulties were not less than lord Wellington’s, all his efforts to draw forth the resources of France were met with apathy, or secret hostility, and there was no money in the military chest to answer the common daily expenses. A junta of the leading merchants in Bayonne voluntarily provided for the most pressing necessities of the troops, but their means were limited and Soult vainly urged the merchants of Bordeaux and Toulouse to follow the patriotic example. It required therefore all his firmness of character to support the crisis; and if the English naval force had been sufficient to intercept the coasting vessels between Bordeaux and Bayonne, the French army must have retired beyond the Adour. As it was, the greatest part of the field artillery and all the cavalry were sent so far to the rear for forage, that they could not be counted a part of the fighting troops; and the infantry, in addition to their immense labours, were forced to carry their own provisions from the navigable points of the rivers to the top of the mountains.