re laid for him, and thus cheated Napoleon of a pretext
for removing him also to some Italian cell.

During four months after Wellington's famous retreat terminated in his
occupation of the lines of Torres Vedras, Massena lay encamped before
that position, in vain practising every artifice which consummate skill
could suggest for the purpose of drawing the British army back into the
field. He attempted to turn first the one flank of the position and then
the other; but at either point he found his antagonist's preparations
perfect. Meantime his communication with Spain was becoming every day
more and more difficult, and the enmity of the peasantry was so
inveterate that his troops began to suffer much from the want of
provisions. Massena at length found himself compelled to retreat; and,
if he executed the military movement with masterly ability, he for ever
disgraced his name by the horrible licence which he permitted to his
soldiery. Every crime of which man is capable--every brutality which can
dishonour rational beings--must be recorded in the narrative of that
fearful march. Age, rank, sex, character, were alike contemned; it
seemed as if, maddened with a devilish rage, these ferocious bands were
resolved to ruin the country which they could not possess, and to
exterminate, as far as was in their power, the population which they
could neither conciliate nor subdue.

Lord Wellington followed hard on their footsteps until they were beyond
the Portuguese frontier; within it they had left only one garrison--at
Almeida, and of this town the siege was immediately formed; while the
British general himself invested the strong Spanish city and fortress of
Ciudad Rodrigo. But Massena, on regaining communication with the French
armies in Castile, swelled his numbers so much, that he ventured to
resume the offensive. Lord Wellington could not maintain the siege of
Ciudad Rodrigo in the face of such an army as Massena had now assembled;
but when the marshal indicated his wishes to bring on battle, he
disdained to decline the invitation. The armies met at Fuentes d'Onor,
on the 5th May 1811, and the French were once more defeated. The
garrison of Almeida contrived to escape across the frontier, before the
siege, which had been interrupted, could be renewed. Portugal remained
in a miserable state of exhaustion indeed, but altogether delivered of
her invaders; and Napoleon, as if resolved that each of his marshals in
succession s