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Meanwhile, the centre and right wing, under the command of Wellington, had forced a passage across the Upper Adour and threatened Bayonne on the other side. Leaving a garrison of 6,000 men in Bayonne, Soult took his stand at Orthez, with an army of about 40,000 men, on the summit of a formidable ridge.
To explain how this last event was possible we must retrace our steps. After Soult was driven by Wellington from the mountains at the back of the town of Orthez, he drew back his shattered troops over the River Adour, and then turned sharply to the east in order to join hands with Suchet's corps.
A tender Point. Towards the end of the month, some divisions of the French army having left Bayonne, and ascended the right bank of the Adour, it produced a corresponding movement on our side, by which our division then occupied Ustaritz, and some neighbouring villages; a change of quarters we had no reason to rejoice in.
* The bridge here alluded to was thrown across the Adour by the Duke of Wellington at the commencement of the siege. It was composed of a number of small fishing vessels fastened together with cords, and planked from one to another, the whole firmly moored about three miles below Bayonne.
"I have other plans," answered Sir Nigel curtly; "for I have come hither to lead these bowmen to the help of the prince, our master, who may have sore need of them ere he set Pedro upon the throne of Spain. It is my purpose to start this very day for Dax upon the Adour, where he hath now pitched his camp."
The procession of sufferers through Tarbes on their way to Lourdes, and the joyful return of many, must have been part of the background of Ferdinand Foch's young days. Many important highways converge at Tarbes, which lies in a rich, elevated plain on the left bank of the River Adour.
To the south-east, at Buglose, where St Vincent de Paul was born, the Pyrenees show far and faint and blue on the horizon. And then suddenly the River Adour appears, and a country which was English. Dax was ours for centuries, and so was Bayonne, whose modern citadel has had a rare fate for any place of strength.
"But I had a quatorze, and took the fishes," replied Des Meloises. "Well, Chevalier, I shall win them back to-night. I hope the dividend will be good: in that way I too may share in the 'business' of the Grand Company." "Good-by, Chevalier; remember me to St. Blague!" If I had an heir for the old chateau on the Adour, I would christen him Bigot for luck."
We witnessed from the camp, one night about twelve o'clock, a fight at sea, between an English brig and a French corvette, which was leaving the Adour with provisions and ammunition. She was chased by the brig, and brought to action. The night was sufficiently clear to enable us to discover distinctly the position of the vessels and the measured flash of their guns.
M. Labat, a merchant of Bayonne, ill in health, had retired in the beginning of the winter, 1803, to a country house on the banks of the Adour. One morning, when promenading in his robe-de-chambre, on a terrace elevated a little above the river, he saw a traveller thrown by a furious horse, from the opposite bank, into the midst of the torrent.
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