Massena found easy sustenance for man and beast in the rich lowlands about Coimbra, and halting in that town for a short time to recruit his strength and nurse his sick, started at last in the full tide of success for Lisbon and the sea, to drive the English to their ships and complete the Continental embargo. As one day succeeded another, his hopes grew higher until at last he overtook and began to skirmish with the English rear-guard. But after a final dash on October eleventh, that rear-guard suddenly vanished. Two days later the French were brought suddenly to a standstill before a long, perfectly constructed, and bristling line of fortifications of whose existence they had known absolutely nothing. These were the famous lines of Torres Vedras, constructed by Wellington in his recent enforced vacation, to guard his eventual retreat and embarkment, provided Sir John Moore's unfortunate campaign and the last Austrian war should find a climax in a similar French victory over all Spain. These lines effectually protected the right bank of the Tagus. They consisted of one hundred and fifty-two redoubts, equipped with seven hundred guns and manned by thirty thousand English, thirty thousand Portuguese, and eight thousand Spaniards. As Massena now had but forty-five thousand men, there could be no question of storming such a fortress, and nothing was left but to await reinforcements and plan a strategic movement by which he might cross the Tagus, threaten Lisbon from the left bank, draw off the foe to its defense, and thus perhaps, having weakened the garrison, secure the possibility of a successful attack on the fortified lines in front.