he suddenly concentrated on Wellington's left as they fronted each other, and began to cross the river -and then as the English drew together to oppose him, as suddenly retraced his steps and appeared unexpectedly on their right. Both Napier and Brialmont blame him for the latter movement, because his first concentration had actually given him that advantage which he sought again in the second-viz. of turning Wellington's flank. But it is to be observed, that a general must provide for the event of a defeat; and to be defeated after turning his adversary's left, was to be driven apart from the other French armies; whereas to be defeated after turning his right, was to be driven back upon his own supports, where he might recover himself, as actually happened after the battle of Salamanca.

There now ensued those picturesque movements which form so distinct a scene in the war, where the rear of the English columns and the head of the French army marched across the great plains between the Douro and the Tormes for two days nearly, always within sight, and frequently within musket-shot of each other. Wellington had a double defensive object, always a source of perplexity-to cover Salamanca, and to cover also the road to Portugal. On the second day the French outmarched and outflanked him, and reached the Tormes first, while he fell off towards Salamanca. He passed the night in great anxiety, as well he might, for his adversary was now nearer to his communications than he was himself. Change leaders, and the English would be ruined. But the next two days brilliantly retrieved all. Both moved across the river, and fronted each other on the hills south of the Tormes, while on the English right and the French left, and perpendicular to the fronts of both, ran the valley which was to be the amphitheatre of battle. Wellington intended to retreat at night -and to secure his retreat he seized the nearest of the two hills which stand at the entrance of the valley, the since famous Arapiles-but he kept his front, for it was still doubt

VOL LXXXVII.-NO. DXXXIV.

ful whether Marmont meant to aim at Salamanca on the one side, or at the road to Portugal on the other. But when the French seized the other Arapile, thus extending beyond Wellington's right, their aim was no longer doubtful, and he changed front to his right, to meet the expected movement on his flank. This was the decisive moment of the campaign-the crisis of all the manœuvres. Had Wellington delayed. for one hour to change front, the enemy would have been on his flank, would have attacked him at a great advantage, and would have cut him off from Portugal. Marmont seeing his adversary's movement but imperfectly, screened as it was by the hills, imagined him to be retreating, and pushed out his own left, aiming to intercept him at the road. Wellington's counter-stroke, delivered instantly with full effect, is so identical with that of Frederick the Great at Rosbach, that it becomes a most interesting question how much was due to the example, how much to intuitive perception. But the great gap in Wellington's biography is that which leaves no record of the studies by which he ripened himself for achievement.

Then followed the rout of Salamanca, where the beaten army fled beyond the Douro, leaving the road to Madrid open, which Wellington followed, driving the King before him, and entering the capital; while the frightened Court fled over the Tagus, a tawdry mob, whom the victor disdained to pursue. Great opportunities were now open to Wellington-he might attack Suchet before Soult could join him, or might attack Soult on his march. But the sinews of war here began to fail-he had neither money nor provisions for either enterprise- and he was forced to relinquish these promising alternatives, and march to Burgos, in order to open, by the capture of that fortress, a northern line of operation. In the siege of that place he failed. Soult and the King, now united, were advancing through Madrid to cut him off; the army he had lately beaten was reinforced, and again made head against him ; and he

2 D

retired into Portugal, narrowly escaping the contretemps of finding his road thither barred by Soult.

Though the campaign was thus indecisive, he had achieved great things in it. Besides beating the French and delivering the capital, he had freed the south of Spain from Soult, who had abandoned, in his hurried march to help the King, immense stores and munitions of war. He had given fresh life to the Spanish efforts, which were beginning to flag, and had thrown the enemy back to where they were three campaigns before. But there were other causes, which he could only remotely influence, that were rendering the deliverance of the Peninsula certain.

The night before the battle of Borodino, Napoleon received in his tent the officer who brought him the news of the battle of Salamanca. "We will repair in the action of tomorrow," was his remark, "the faults committed at the Arapiles." But the next day, with its hollow victory, was only the commencement of a series of unparalleled misfortunes. Following the example of Wellington in 1810, the Russians, slowly retreating, devastated their country, ending by the famous burning of Moscow; and when the invader turned to retrace his steps across the waste, two armies, directed long before from the extremities of that vast empire, converged across his path. While Napoleon, flying in gloom from the sight of the ruin of his hosts, was hastening across the snows towards France, Wellington, now generalissimo of the Spanish armies, was organising the resources of the Peninsula for the campaign that was to clear its soil of the invader. The one star was waning as the other brightened, and they were growing more equal in magnitude.

As a great change now took place in the affairs of the Peninsula, it will be well to note it.

If Napoleon's reputation as a statesman rested on his manner of dealing with Spain, it would not be high. Considered only as a theatre of war, his opinions respecting that country were, as always, almost infallible; yet, considered as disaffected territory, to be held in submission, his arrange

ments for maintaining his grasp on it were marked by fatal errors. The first was, that he pursued here the system of subsisting entirely on the country, which had answered very well in single campaigns elsewhere, but was in this case totally inapplicable. Such a system requires that the troops, in order to subsist, shall be spread over a great extent of country. Thus the whole land was dotted with detachments, and these were of necessity strong, because, if weak, they would have been cut off by the hostile population. Hence the enormous French force was divided and subdivided till its reassembly on particular points became a work not only of difficulty and time, but of danger, because, immediately the detachments began to move, the guerillas beset the defiles and difficult points of the lines of march. The districts occupied by the French were, in course of time, exhausted, and hence it was that Soult, contrary to military principles, which demanded a concentric action at that time, was ordered, in 1811, to occupy Andalucia for the sake of the provisions, money, and plunder that it would afford.

Another error was, that the Emperor made each marshal's commanda separate military government. Thus each regarded himself as an independent ruler, and felt jealous of the others, forgetting the duty of cooperating for a common end. The ill effect of this might have been obviated by appointing one dominant chief. But King Joseph, though a sensible man, was no general, and Napoleon, with an impolicy surprising in one so experienced in government, while he insisted that his brother should remain titular monarch, had deprived him of funds, of authority, even of outward respect and state, and left him a king of shreds and patches. Thus there was no one to reconcile the contending interests of the marshals, who openly defied his authority.

Nevertheless, such was the state of the Spanish government, armies, and people, that in 1812 they were on the point of submitting to Joseph. The government had split into factions, and there was no attempt at

co-operation. The mobs were dominant in the great cities. The generals and soldiers were alike inefficient and presumptuous, and the armies were insignificant in numbers, as well as in discipline and conduct. There was no concert between them. Each general did what seemed good in his own eyes. The corps assembled, advanced, ran away, and reassembled, in a fashion that defied the discovery of any plan of operation, and deserted or rejoined their colours as the fancy took them, the government never troubling itself with their organisation, supplies, or pay. In the absence of any prospect of a national system of opposition, the Cortes had been about to signify their adhesion to Joseph, when Wellington's advance into Spain, the victory of Salamanca, and the entry into Madrid, had restored the spirit of the government, troops, and people. Again the armies drew together, the guerilla bands swarmed, and the people displayed their inveterate hatred. The French lines of operation had only been so many embankments against insurrection; and, directly the troops retired, the armed population surged over their footsteps. Thus, when Soult had been drawn by Wellington's advance, in 1812, to the common centre of danger, the whole south of Spain was lost to him.

It was plain, in the beginning of 1813, that it could not be recovered; for the balance of the contending powers, hitherto so much against Wellington, was now changing. His British troops, now in good condition, were reinforced by Spanish corps, who, under his system, became effective in the field, while the Portuguese had attained to such soldiership that their battalions were incorporated in the British divisions. On the other hand, the French armies, weakened by drafts for Napoleon's new effort, the Leipsic campaign, took their stand between the Douro and the Pyrenees, no longer thinking of conquest, but solicitous only to guard the approaches to France. It was no wonder that, as Wellington noted their feeble resources, their incapable commander, their shaken confidence, and impaired discipline, he should have felt assured of the speedy accomplish

ment of his task, and should have uttered, as he crossed the frontier rivulet of Spain, a farewell to Portugal.

His enemies, no longer as heretofore surrounding him, but now all before him, stretched across Spain, from Valencia on the east, to Galicia on the north-west; and that portion of their line with which he had to deal was much scattered, from the necessity of suppressing the insurgent bands on the line of communication with France. The front of that part of the French line nearest to him was protected by the Douro; its right flank by the tributaries which run from the north into the Douro, such as the Esla, Carrion, and Pisuerga. The question for Wellington was, which flank he should turn? Napoleon, in such a case, would probably have chosen the left, as most decisive. Penetrating between the Castilian mountains and the Douro, he would have crossed the river high up its course, and, thus separating Suchet from the other armies, would have cut off from the Pyrenees all the French beyond the Ebro. But reasons connected with the state of the Portuguese and Spanish troops rendered this inexpedient; and another consideration, the importance of which will presently appear, had also great influence in causing the English general to determine to turn their right, while his dispositions were such as to cause them to guard the other flank. Sending Graham with a large force across the Douro, in the Portuguese portion of its course, to make his way by the right bank through the Tras-os-Montes to the Esla, Wellington himself advanced by the left bank. The French assembled on the river were too few effectually to oppose the great force with which the allies threatened them in front and flank, and fell back. The whole army was then assembled under Wellington, on the north side of the Douro, and drove the French from river to river to the Ebro, without any considerable engagement.

Hitherto Wellington had depended for his supplies on the harbours and magazines of Portugal, from whence they reached him by trains of mules and vehicles, which grew of course constantly more lengthy

cumbrous, and precarious in their operation, the farther he advanced. But his line of march now brought him near the north coast of Spain. The fleet came round from the Portuguese to the Asturian coast, dislodged the French from some of the ports of the Bay of Biscay, transferred thither the line of transports from England, and thus brought his supplies close to him by a new route. This was the reason that induced him to prefer to operate by the French right-and a new advantage of a strategical nature was also conferred by this transfer of his base. The great defensive line of the French was that of the Ebro. While dependent on the road to Portugal he could not have moved far to the right or left for the purpose of turning their front on that river, without uncovering his communications. But from his new base on the Biscayan coast he could not only turn the Ebro, but could move in the country beyond it, in a direction parallel to its course. He was on the flank of the French line of retreat, and his relations with the enemy were totally changed, as was soon experienced in the next

encounter.

Proposing plans which his marshals disputed over, taking up positions only to abandon them, and issuing orders which nobody attended to, the unfortunate King Joseph, finding his army in a great degree collected by the process of recoiling on itself, stood at last in the basin of Vittoria to offer battle. He took post on the high bank of the river Zadora, a tributary of the Ebro which covered his front. Its course ran backward at an angle, and his line of battle followed that configuration he thus presented two fronts, and the front of his right wing was parallel to his main line of retreat. Hence, if his right wing should be defeated, his main line of retreat would be lost. Now, had Wellington continued to base his movements on Portugal, Joseph never need have taken up such a disadvantageous position, but could have always posted himself so as to front Wellington, and to cover, at the same time, his line into France. But the coast of Biscay runs parallel to that line, so that, when Wellington

advanced from thence, the King, in order still to front his enemy, must draw up his army with its flank, instead of its rear, towards his point of retreat. This circumstance it was, rather than any brilliant manoeuvres of the allies on the field of battle, which rendered the defeat of Vittoria so decisive of the campaign.

Wellington was in the passes of the mountains leading into the basin, his movements screened by the hills. Emerging from the defiles, he directed his main force against the enemy posted at the elbow and lower course of the Zadora; while Graham, on his left, moved away by another pass to cross the river higher up, and seize the great road to Bayonne, which was the main French line of retreat out of Vittoria. Reille defended the bridges valiantly against Graham, but the main French army was driven back at all points, and Reille, too, at last gave way, though still fighting in retreat. Thus the main road was lost, and the French were driven in rout through the one avenue still open to them, that of Pampeluna, along which they fled, destitute of everything. All the roads round Vittoria were blocked up by their carriages, baggage, and plunder, which, with their artillery, fell into the hands of the victors, while the beaten army, amidst all kinds of privations, reached the shelter of the Pyrenees.

As soon as Napoleon heard of this disaster he deprived Joseph of the command (who thenceforth disappears from the scene), and despatched Soult to rally and restore confidence to the army, and to guard the approaches to France.

Thus ended the second part of this great historical play. The main French army was driven back to its own territory. Spain, except Catalonia and Arragon, where the embers of war still glimmered, was free, and the victors could look forward with good hope to entering France. But the remoter consequences of the victory were no less important.

Napoleon, breaking out into Germany, had, during this campaign, gained the battles of Lutzen and Bautzen with the heads of his columns, had secured strong lines of defence fronting the Russians and

Prussians, and, having negotiated an armistice, was now awaiting the arrival of his levies on the Elbe. The great question for him was, Would Austria remain neutral? If she did, he could dispose of the rest of his enemies. If she were to join them, her position on his flank would render his hold of Germany untenable without miraculous successes. Austria still hung in doubt. Remembrance of former visitations of Napoleon's wrath, terror at his fortune, and consideration for her family alliance with him, made her pausewhile the hope of retrieving her losses, and freeing herself from the vassalage in which he held her,

urged her to join the ranks of his foes. At this period of doubt the news from Vittoria came to help her decision. Napoleon insanely rejected offers of accommodation which would still have left him the finest empire in the world, with an immense widening of the limits of revolutionary France - he would have all or nothing-he defied Europe, Europe beat him at Leipsic, and the great overrunner of nations was now fighting to preserve his own territory from invasion. The previsions of Wellington were in rapid course of accomplishment.

(To be continued.)

On the 26th of April 1764, at Preston, in Lancashire, a girl was born of poor parents, of the name of Lyons. If a fairy had sat by the cradle of that child and promised her matchless beauty and mental endowments of the highest order-had told her that all that wealth could purchase should be lavished upon her; that princes and nobles, poets and painters, should hang upon the tones of her voice and the smiles that played round her lips; that she should go forth to the fairest of lands, whose Queen should select her for her most intimate and cherished friend; that she should reign absolute in the heart of one whose name filled all tongues, and that upon her the destinies of the world should depend;-and if another voice had then whispered, "All this shall be so unto thee, but thy fame shall be blasted; thy name shall be spoken with bated breath as a word of shame; foul crimes shall be falsely charged against thee, and, for thy sake, against him who shall love thee as only hearts as great and generous as his can love; obloquy shall be heaped upon thy head, and thou shalt die an outcast in a foreign land, lonely, forlorn, and deserted ;"-such a prophecy would not have equalled in strangeness the real events of the life of that child.

If we desired to write a thesis upon

the trite observation, how much stranger truth is than fiction, or a moral essay on the mutability of Fortune, we could not select a more appropriate theme than the life of Emma Lyons. We have, however, neither the wish nor the intention to moralise. The task we propose to ourselves is the humbler but more difficult one of examining the evidence upon which certain well-known stories, once current merely as matter of popular scandal, have gradually been woven into the web of history; of separating what we may fairly accept as facts from what we are entitled to reject as fiction; of gathering up the scattered fragments of truth, and freeing them as far as we are able from the falsehoods in which they have been obscured.

The father of Emma Lyons died whilst she was an infant, and upon his death her mother removed from Preston to the village of Hawarden in Flintshire. Here, at a very early age, she was engaged as a nurserymaid in the family of a Mr Thomas who resided in that village, and who was brother-in-law to the well-known Alderman Boydell. Her next engagement was in a similar capacity in the family of Dr Budd, one of the physicians to St Bartholomew's Hospital, who resided in Chatham Place, Blackfriars. This fact is mentioned