Note 236 — BATTLES OF THE PYRENEES.

Riding at full speed, he reached the village of Sorauren, and his eagle-glance detected Clausel’s column in march along the ridge of Zabaldica. Convinced that the troops in the valley of the Lanz must be intercepted by this movement, he sprang from his saddle, and pencilled a note on the parapet of the bridge, directing the troops to take the road to Oricain, and gain the rear of Cole’s position. The scene that followed was highly interesting. “Lord Fitzroy Somerset, the only staff-officer who had kept up with him, galloped with these orders out of Sorauren by one road, the French light cavalry dashed in by another, and the English general rode alone up the mountain to reach his troops. One of Campbell’s Portuguese battalions first descried him, and raised a cry of joy, and the shrill clamour caught up by the next regiments swelled as it run along the line into that stern and appalling shout which the British soldier is wont to give upon the edge of battle, and which no enemy ever heard unmoved. Lord Wellington suddenly stopped in a conspicuous place; he desired that both armies should know he was there; and a double spy who was present pointed out Soult, then so near that his features could be plainly distinguished. The English general, it is said, fixed his eyes attentively upon this formidable man, and speaking as if to himself, said, ‘Yonder is a great commander, but he is a cautious one, and will delay his attack to ascertain the cause of these cheers; that will give time for the 6th division to arrive, and I shall beat him.’ And certain it is that the French general made no serious attack that day.”—Napier.

Twelve British regiments were embattled on the Pyrenees who had fought at Talavera; and there were present not a few who might recall an incident to memory, that would present a striking but amusing contrast Cuesta, examining his battle-ground four years before in lumbering state, seated in an unwieldly coach, and drawn by eight pampered mules; Wellington, on an English hunter, dashing from post to post at headlong speed, and at a pace that distanced the best mounted of his staff.