3º. It has been observed that a minor cause of defeat was the drawing up of the French troops in front instead of in rear of the redoubts. This may possibly have happened in some places from error and confusion, not by design, for Clauzel’s report expressly states that Maransin was directed to form in rear of the redoubts and charge the allies when they were between the works and the abbatis. It is however needless to pry closely into these matters when the true cause lies broad on the surface. Lord Wellington directed superior numbers with superior skill. The following analysis will prove this, but it must be remembered that the conscripts are not included in the enumeration of the French force: being quite undisciplined they were kept in masses behind and never engaged. Abbé’s division, furnishing five thousand old soldiers, was posted in two lines one behind the other, and they were both paralyzed by the position of Morillo’s division and Mina’s battalions. Foy’s division was entirely occupied by the same troops. Six thousand of Wellington’s worst soldiers therefore sufficed to employ twelve thousand of Soult’s best troops during the whole day. Meanwhile Hill fell upon the decisive point where there was only D’Armagnac’s division to oppose him, that is to say, five thousand against twenty thousand. And while the battle was secured on the right of the Nivelle by this disproportion, Beresford on the other bank thrust twenty-four thousand against the ten thousand composing Conroux’s and Maransin’s divisions. Moreover as Hill and Beresford, advancing, the one from his left the other from his right, formed a wedge towards the bridge of Amotz, forty-four thousand men composing the six divisions under those generals, fell upon the fifteen thousand composing the divisions of D’Armagnac Conroux and Maransin; and these last were also attacked in detail, because part of Conroux’s troops were defeated near Sarre, and Barbot’s brigade of Maransin’s corps was beaten on the Rhune by the light division before the main position was attacked. Finally Alten with eight thousand men, having first defeated Barbot’s brigade, fell upon Taupin who had only three thousand while the rest of the French army was held in check by Freyre and Hope. Thus more than fifty thousand troops full of confidence from repeated victories were suddenly thrown upon the decisive point where there were only eighteen thousand dispirited by previous reverses to oppose them. Against such a thunderbolt there was no defence in the French works. Was it then a simple matter for Wellington so to combine his battle? The mountains on whose huge flanks he gathered his fierce soldiers, the roads he opened, the horrid crags he surmounted, the headlong steeps he descended, the wild regions through which he poured the destructive fire of more than ninety guns, these and the reputation of the French commander furnish the everlasting reply.