Note 726 — SECTION XVI: CHAPTER VIII

Ney has been accused of deserting Soult, and retiring from Almaraz and Navalmoral on his own responsibility, and contrary to the orders of his immediate superior. But Jourdan’s dispatch of Aug. 9 to the Minister of War shows that the Duke of Elchingen was obeying directions sent to him from the royal head quarters. ‘Le roi a pensé,’ he writes, ‘qu’on ne devait pas, quant à présent, chercher à pénétrer ni en Andalousie ni en Portugal.... Le duc de Dalmatie renverra promptement le 6me corps sur Salamanque pour en chasser les ennemis, et couvrir la Vieille Castille conjointement avec le Général Kellermann.’ Ney then was strictly correct in stating in his dispatch of Aug. 18, that he had acted in obedience to his orders.