and detained them as prisoners—­thus, foolishly as well a wickedly, imitating the perfidy of Napoleon’s own conduct to Spain.  This battle and capitulation of Baylen were termed by the Emperor himself the Caudine forks of the French army.  He attributed the disaster to treachery on the part of Dupont:  it was the result of the rashness of the expedition, and the incompetency of the conductor.  The richest part of Spain was freed wholly of the invaders:  the light troops of Castanos pushed on, and swept the country before them; and within ten days, King Joseph perceived the necessity of quitting Madrid, and removed his headquarters to Vittoria.

In the meantime Lefebre Desnouettes, whose early success in Arragon has been alluded to, was occupied with the siege of Zaragossa—­the inhabitants of which city had risen in the first outbreak, and prepared to defend their walls to the last extremity.  Don Jose Palafox, a young nobleman of no great talents, who had made his escape from Bayonne, was invested with the command; but the real leaders were the priests and some of the private citizens, who selected him for the prominent place as belonging to a family of eminent distinction in their kingdom, but in effect considered and used him as their tool.  Some Spanish and Walloon regiments, who had formed the garrisons of strong places treacherously seized by the enemy before the war commenced, had united with Palafox, and various bloody skirmishes had occurred—­ere the French general was enabled to shut them up in Zaragossa and form the siege.  The importance of success in this enterprise was momentous, especially after the failure of Moncey at Valencia.  Napoleon himself early saw, that if the Valencians should be able to form an union with the Arragonese at Zaragossa, the situation of the Catalonian insurgents on the one side would be prodigiously strengthened; while, on the other hand, the armies of Leon and Galicia (whose coasts offered the means of continual communication with England) would conduct their operations in the immediate vicinity of the only great road left open between Madrid and Bayonne—­the route by Burgos.  He therefore had instructed Savary to consider Zaragossa as an object of the very highest importance; but the corps of Lefebre was not strengthened as the Emperor would have wished it to be, ere he sat down before Zaragossa.  The siege was pressed with the utmost vigour; but the immortal heroism of the citizens baffled all the valour of the French.  There were no regular works worthy of notice:  but the old Moorish walls, not above eight or ten feet in height, and some extensive monastic buildings in the outskirts of the city, being manned by crowds of determined men, whose wives and daughters looked on, nay, mingled boldly in their defence—­the besiegers were held at bay week after week, and saw their ranks thinned in continual assaults without being able to secure any adequate advantage.  Famine came and disease in its train, to aggravate the sufferings