As usual, there had been recriminations at headquarters.

"Jourdan, ill and angry, kept his room; and the King was equally invisible."[318] Few orders were given.
The town was packed with convoys and vehicles of all kinds, and it was not till dawn of that fatal midsummer's day that the last convoy set out for France, under the escort of 3,000 troops.

Nevertheless, Joseph might hope to hold his own.

True, he had but 70,000 troops at hand, or perhaps even fewer; yet on the evening of the 19th he heard that Clausel had set out from Pamplona.
At once he bade him press on his march, but that message fell into the enemy's hands.[319] Relying, then, on help which was not to arrive, Joseph confronted the allied army.

It numbered, in all, 83,000 men, though Napier asserts that not more than 60,000 took part in the fighting.