Note 201 — Chapter I

‘Rien ne nous empêchait,’ says Masséna’s biographer Koch, ‘de passer à gué le Mondégo, et de nous rendre maîtres de la Sierra de Alcoba, d’où nous menacerions Coïmbre et toute la contrée comprise entre le Mondégo, le Duero et la mer.’ But there was a hindrance—or rather three hindrances—the Mondego was not fordable at the moment, and what was more important, the starving army could not have lived on the country-side north of the Mondego. Moreover the passage of the Mondego with a lively enemy at his heels would have been too dangerous for Masséna, who had already refused to accept such conditions on the day of Condeixa.