On the French side Taupin’s division and a large body of conscripts forming Clauzel’s right wing still remained to fight. The left rested on a large work called the signal redoubt, which had no artillery but overlooked the whole position; the right was covered by two redoubts overhanging a ravine which separated them from the camp of Serres, and some works in the ravine itself protected the communication by the bridge of Ascain. Behind the signal redoubt, on a ridge crossing the road to San Pé and along which Maransin and Conroux’s beaten divisions were now flying in disorder, there was another work called the redoubt of Harastaguia, and Clauzel thinking he might still dispute the victory, if his reserve division, posted in the camp of Serres, could come to his aid, drew the thirty-first French regiment from Taupin, and posted it in front of this redoubt of Harastaguia. His object was to rally Maransin’s and Conroux’s troops there and so form a new line, the left on the Harastaguia, the right on the signal redoubt, into which last he threw six hundred of the eighty-eighth regiment. In this position having a retreat by the bridge of Ascain he resolved to renew the battle, but his plan failed at the moment of conception, because Taupin could not stand before the light division which was now again in full action. [Sidenote: Clauzel’s Official Report to Soult, MSS.] [Sidenote: Taupin’s Official Report, MSS.] About half-past nine, general Alten, seeing the whole of the columns on his right, as far as the eye could reach, well engaged with the enemy, had crossed the low neck of land in his front. It was first passed by the fifty-second regiment with a rapid pace and a very narrow front, under a destructive cannonade and fire of musketry from the entrenchments which covered the side of the opposite mountain; a road coming from Ascain by the ravine led up the position, and as the fifty-second pushed their attack along it the enemy abandoned his entrenchments on each side, and forsook even his crowning works above. This formidable regiment was followed by the remainder of Alten’s troops, and Taupin, though his division was weak from its losses on the 7th of October and now still further diminished by the absence of the thirty-first regiment, awaited the assault above, being supported by the conscripts drawn up in his rear. But at this time Longa, having turned the smaller Rhune, approached Ascain, and being joined by part of Freyre’s troops their skirmishers opened a distant musketry against the works covering that bridge on Taupin’s right; a panic immediately seized the French, the seventieth regiment abandoned the two redoubts above, and the conscripts were withdrawn. Clauzel ordered Taupin to retake the forts but this only added to the disorder, the seventieth regiment instead of facing about disbanded entirely and were not reassembled until next day. There remained only four regiments unbroken, one, the eighty-eighth, was in the