His intent was to attack Soult’s entrenched camp on the 29th, thinking Pampeluna would fall before that period. In this he was mistaken; and bad weather stopped his movements, for in the passes above Roncesvalles the troops were knee-deep in snow. The preparations however continued and strict precautions were taken to baffle the enemy’s emissaries. Soult was nevertheless perfectly informed by the deserters of the original design and the cause of the delay; and he likewise obtained from a serjeant-major of artillery who losing his road was taken on the 29th, certain letters and orders indicating an attack in the direction of the bridge of Amotz, between D’Erlon’s right and Clauzel’s left. Some French peasants also who had been allowed to pass the allied outposts declared they had been closely questioned about that bridge and the roads leading to it. The defences there were therefore augmented with new redoubts and abbatis, and Soult having thus as he judged, sufficiently provided for its safety, and being in no pain for his right, nor for Clauzel’s position, covered as the latter was by the smaller Rhune, turned his attention towards Foy’s corps. That general had been posted at Bidarray, half way between St. Jean Pied de Port and Cambo, to watch certain roads, which leading to the Nive from Val Baigorry by St. Martin d’Arosa, and from the Bastan by Yspegui and the Gorospil mountain, gave Soult anxiety for his left; but now expecting the principal attack at the bridge of Amotz, and not by these roads, nor by St. Jean Pied de Port, as he at first supposed and as lord Wellington had at one time designed, he resolved to use Foy’s division offensively. In this view on the 3d of November he instructed him if St. Jean Pied de Port should be only slightly attacked, to draw all the troops he could possibly spare from its defence to Bidarray, and when the allies assailed D’Erlon, he was to seize the Gorospil mountain and fall upon their right as they descended from the Puerto de Maya. If on the other hand he was himself assailed by those lines, he was to call in all his detached troops from St. Jean Pied de Port, repass the Nive by the bridge of Bidarray, make the best defence possible behind that river, and open a communication with Pierre Soult and Trielhard, whose divisions of cavalry were at St. Palais and Orthes. On the 6th Foy, thinking the Gorospil difficult to pass, proposed to seize the Col de Yspegui from the side of St. Jean Pied de Port, and so descend into the Bastan. Soult however preferred Bidarray as a safer point and more united with the main body of the army; but he gave Foy a discretionary power to march along the left of the Nive upon Itzatzu and Espelette, if he judged it fitting to reinforce D’Erlon’s left rather than to attack the enemy.