There, too, the fight at last swirled back, albeit with many a rallying eddy, into Vittoria.  That town was no place of refuge, but a death-trap; for Graham had pushed on a detachment to Durana, on the high-road leading direct to France, and thus blocked the main line of retreat.  Joseph’s army was now in pitiable plight.  Pent up in the choked streets of Vittoria, torn by cannon-shot from the English lines, the wreckage of its three armies for a time surged helplessly to and fro, and then broke away eastwards towards Pamplona.  On that side only was safety to be found, for British hussars scoured the plain to the north-east, lending wings to the flight.  The narrow causeway, leading through marshes, was soon blocked, and panic seized on all:  artillerymen cut their traces and fled; carriages crowded with women, once called gay, but now frantic with terror, wagons laden with ammunition, stores, treasure-chests, and the booty amassed by generals and favourites during five years of warfare and extortion, all were left pell-mell.  Jourdan’s Marshal’s baton was taken, and was sent by Wellington to the Prince Regent, who acknowledged it by conferring on the victor the title of Field-Marshal.

Richly was the title deserved.  After four years of battling with superior numbers, the British leader at last revealed the full majesty of his powers now that the omens were favourable.  In six weeks he marched more than five hundred miles, crossed six rivers, and, using the Navarrese revolt as the anvil, dealt the hammer-stroke of Vittoria.  It cost Napoleon 151 pieces of cannon, nearly all the stores piled up for his Peninsular campaigns—­and Spain itself.[320]

As for Joseph, he left his carriage and fled on horseback towards France, reaching St. Jean de Luz “with only a napoleon left.”  He there also assured his queen that he had always preferred a private station to the grandeur and agitations of public life.[321] This, indeed, was one of the many weak points of his brother’s Spanish policy.  It rested on the shoulders of an amiable man who was better suited to the ease of Naples than to the Herculean toils of Madrid.  Napoleon now saw the magnitude of his error.  On July 1st he bade Soult leave Dresden at once for Paris.  There he was to call on Clarke, with him repair to Cambaceres; and, as Lieutenant-General, take steps to re-establish the Emperor’s affairs in Spain.  A Regency was to govern in place of Joseph, who was ordered to remain, according to the state of affairs, either at Burgos(!) or St. Sebastian or Bayonne.

“All the follies in Spain” (he wrote to Cambaceres on that day) “are due to the mistaken consideration I have shown the King, who not only does not know how to command, but does not even know his own value enough to leave the military command alone.”

And to Savary he wrote two days later: 

    “It is hard to imagine anything so inconceivable as what is now
    going on in Spain.  The King could have collected 100,000 picked
    men:  they might have beaten the whole of England.”