Note 47 — SECTION XVII: CHAPTER III

St. Cyr tells a story to the effect that he had placed Mazzuchelli’s brigade of Pino’s division in ambush behind the hill of Palau to intercept Garcia Conde, and that the Spaniards would have marched right into the trap on Sept. 3, if the Italians had not been stupid enough to sound the réveil at dawn, and so warn the enemy of their existence. But the Spanish accounts of Minali and Claros are quite different (see Arteche, vii. 377); they are to the effect that Garcia Conde had intended to start at dusk on the third, but, hearing firing on the side of Palau, deferred his exit and took another road. If he was starting at 7 or 8 o’clock at night on the third, he cannot have been warned by the morning bugles at 4 o’clock on the previous morning. See St. Cyr, p. 234, and Napier, ii. 245, for the French story, which the latter takes over whole from the former. Belmas and Vacani do not give the tale, though they have a full narration of the escape of Garcia Conde.