He was watched by two French armies. Soult was at Oporto in the north, and Victor far up the Tagus Valley, between him and Madrid. By an unexpected movement, having surprised Soult and sent him headlong beyond the frontier, Wellesley crossed the border in quest of Victor. The armies clashed at Talavera, in the last days of June, in one of the most stubbornly contested engagements of the war. The English kept possession of the field, and, though Joseph Bonaparte congratulated his soldiers upon the glory of the "victory," he knew in his heart, as his greater brother told him to his face, that the battle was a French defeat. Conditions were not yet suited for an advance into Spain, where the French were gathering in enormous force, with instructions from Napoleon to "advance upon the English, pursue them without cessation, beat them, and fling them into the sea." To insure his forces against the execution of this mandate Wellesley constructed a crescent of earthworks about Lisbon, "the lines of Torres Vedras," within which he might take refuge, and under cover of which, as a last resort, his forces might be safely re- embarked for retreat. The veteran Massena was selected by the Emperor to drive the English out of Portugal. As he advanced, in the summer of 1810, Wellesley retired before him, and just when the pursuer believed the game was his, he was confronted by the impregnable lines of Torres Vedras, whose position and strength was all unsuspected. All winter Massena hovered about the hole, but the fox was safe in his earth, and in the spring the old hound again turned his face toward Spain, with the English on his trail. For another year the English general, who, in honor of Talavera, had been raised to the peerage as Viscount Wellington, was engaged in reducing the French garrisons, and forming into useful auxiliary troops the raw Portuguese who had risen against the invader. The capture of the fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo (January, 1812) opened the road to Spain. So important was this point that the captor was rewarded for it with an English earldom, a Spanish dukedom, and a Portuguese marquisate. In early summer Wellington's army took the offensive on Spanish soil. Marshal Marmont's army at Salamanca in the north was his first objective. The clash came on the 22nd of July. On the second day of the battle of Salamanca the English infantry crushed the weakened center of Marmont's line, the marshal was wounded, his army hurriedly retreated. On the 12th of August the English were in Madrid. The Bonaparte King fled from his capital, whose citizens, intoxicated with joy, crowded around the English general, hung on his stirrups, touched his clothes, and throwing themselves on the earth, blessed him aloud as the friend of Spain!