Note 8 — CHAPTER THE FIRST

Mr. Wigram, in his finely illustrated book on Northern Spain, reminds us that the Puente Mayor at Orense played a various part in the Peninsula War. It was the pivot of the French operations when Soult led his troops from Coruña to renew the subjugation of Portugal. At first all went well, but “within two months his army was reeling back from Oporto, without hospital, baggage, or artillery, in a worse plight even than Moore’s. He had wrestled his first fall with the great antagonist who was destined to beat him from the Douro to Toulouse.”