Upon hearing the news of the engagement, General Ignacio Zaragoza, who was near Orizaba, set off for Puebla in the evening. The next day, Charles de Lorencez entered Orizaba. He made a proclamation there justifying his conduct by the "vile attack" with which Zaragoza would have threatened French patients had he not fled. This excuse was falsified by the French, much like the false testimony that Dubois de Saligny, Minister Plenipotentiary of France, had produced during the negotiations in order to strengthen the cause of the French intervention. After this minor victory, de Lorencez showed an unrealistic level of optimism in the campaign. Exhilarated by the success, he wrote to Napoleon III that he would soon become the "master of Mexico". On April 27, he marched on the Mexican capital. On May 5, he suffered a failure in front of Puebla and had to back withdraw to Orizaba.
