LIV. 1808. June 8. CHAP. who had fled in disorder a few minutes before through the streets, returned to the charge. Threatened on all sides, Schwartz resolved to retreat, which he effected at first in good order; but his advanced guard having attempted, during the night, to force the passage of the town of Esparraguera, which lay on his road, was repulsed with loss, and his troops, thrown into disorder by that nocturnal check, were never able to gain their proper array, till they found refuge, two days after, under the cannon of Barcelona. Chabran, whose route lay through a less mountainous district, reached Tarragona in safety on the 7th, and got possession of that important town without opposition: but Duhesme was so much alarmed by the repulse of Schwartz, that he hastily recalled him to Barcelona. So dangerous is it to make a retrograde movement while engaged with an insurrection, that a very severe resistance was experienced in the retreat, at places where not a shot had been fired during the advance. Irritated by this opposition, and the sanguinary excesses of the peasants, the French set fire to Villafranca as they retired; and Duhesme having sent Count Theodore Lecchi with the Italian division and Schwartz's troops to his assistance, the united columns 1 Tor. i. 309, again approached the pass of Bruch: but finding the 315, Nap. Somatenes posted on its rugged cliffs in even greater Foy, iv. 143, strength than before, they fell back after a bloody skirhesme, 18, mish, and regained the shelter of Barcelona, pursued up ix. 62, 63. to the very gates by the dropping fire and taunting scoffs of their gallant though rustic opponents.1* June 14. i. 75, 77. 151. Du 19. Thiers, 45. spread of These defeats produced the greater sensation, both Universal among the French and Spaniards, that they were gained, not by regular troops, but by a tumultuary array of peasants, wholly undisciplined, and most of whom had then for the first time been engaged either in military service the insur rection. The inhabitants of Bruch, to commemorate their victory, erected a stone in the pass, with this pompous though laconic inscription:- "Victores Marengo, Austerlitz, et Jena, hic victi fuerunt diebus vi. et xiv. Junii, anno 1808."-Fox, iv. 151. LIV. 1808. or exercise. They occasioned in consequence a universal CHAP. insurrection in Catalonia; the cities equally as the mountains caught the flame. The burghers of Lerida, Tortosa, Tarragona, Gerona, and all the towns in the province not garrisoned by French troops, closed their gates, manned their ramparts, and elected juntas to direct measures of defence; while the mountain districts, which embraced four-fifths of the province, obeyed the animating call of the Somaten, and, under the guidance of their parish priests, organised a desperate Vendean warfare. Forty regiments, of a thousand men each, were ordered to be raised for active operations among these formidable mountaineers. Regular officers were, for the most part, obtained to direct their organisation; the ranks were in a short time complete, and, for the service of light troops, were of a very efficient description. An equal force was directed to be prepared as a reserve, in case their mountain fastnesses should be threatened by the enemy. The peculiar nature of these extensive and thickly-peopled hill-districts, as well as the character and resolution of their inhabitants; their rugged precipices, wood-clad steeps, and terraced slopes; their villages, perched like eyries on the summit of cliffs, and numerous forts and castles, each susceptible of a separate defence; their bold and energetic inhabitants, consisting of lawless smugglers or hardy peasants, long habituated to the Foy, iv. enjoyment of almost unbounded practical freedom-Tor. i. 315, rendered this warfare of a peculiarly hazardous and i. 77. laborious description.1* Aware of the necessity of striking a decisive blow in the present critical state of affairs in the province, * Though locally situated in an unlimited monarchy, the province of Catalonia, like those of Navarre and Biscay, has long enjoyed such extensive civil privileges as savour rather of democratic equality than despotic authority. Its social state differs altogether from that of Aragon, though they were so long united under the same sceptre. Nowhere, except in this mountain republic, is there so ardent a thirst after political freedom, or so large an enjoyment, at least in the mountainous districts, of its practical blessings. The inhabitants cherish the most profound hatred of the French, whom they accuse of having 151, 155. 316. Nap. LIV. 1808. 46. attempt by the French against Gerona. June 16. June 20. CHAP. Duhesme conceived that a sudden coup-de-main against GERONA, which lies on the direct road to France, would both re-establish his communications, which the insurDefeat of an rections in all directions had totally intercepted, and strike a general terror into the enemy. Accordingly, two days after the return of the former ill-fated expedition, he set out in the direction of that town, with six thousand of his best troops, taking the coast-road to avoid the fortress of Hostalrich, which was in the hands of the enemy. After cutting his way with great slaughter June 17. through a large body of Somatenes who endeavoured to obstruct his progress, he appeared on the 20th before Gerona. Little preparation had been made to repel an assault; but the gates were closed, and the inhabitants, in great numbers, were on the walls prepared to defend their hearths. Having at length got his scaling-ladders ready, and diverted the attention of the besieged by a skirmish with the Somatenes on the plains at a distance from the ramparts, the assaulting columns suddenly approached the walls at five in the afternoon. Though they got very near without being perceived, and a few brave men reached the summit, they were repulsed in two successive attacks with great slaughter; and Duhesme, 1 Nap. i. 77. having in vain tried the effect of a negotiation to induce iv. 151, 159. a surrender, returned by forced marches to Barcelona, 317. Thiers, harassed at every step by the Somatenes, who, descending in great strength from the hills, inflicted a severe loss on his retreating columns.1 80. Foy, Tor. i. 315, ix. 203, 204. After this defeat, the whole plain round Barcelona, called the Llobregat, was filled with the enemy's troops ; and General Duhesme, finding himself thus beset in the capital of the province, marched out against them, excited their fathers to revolt against the government of Madrid, and abandoned them, when the contest was no longer conducive to their interests. In the long and opulent district which runs along the sea-shore, and contains the flourishing seaports of Tarragona, Rosas, and Barcelona, commercial interests prevail; and the alliance and consequent trade with England were as much the object of desire as the withering union with France had been a subject of aversion.-Foy, iv. 137, 138. pea CHAP. LIV. 1808. 47. against which is June 30. a week afterwards, and defeated a large body of the santry at the bridge of Molinos del Rey, capturing all their artillery. Rallying, however, at their old fastnesses of Bruch and Igualado, they again, when the French Expedition retired, returned to the Llobregat, and not only shut up Rosas,, the enemy within the ramparts of Barcelona, but estab- defeated. lished a communication with the insurgents in the interior, along the sea-coast, from the Pyrenean frontier to the mouth of the Ebro, the whole of which district became the theatre of insurrection. Napoleon, to whom the prolongation of the war in so many different quarters had become a subject of great uneasiness, no sooner received intelligence of these events than he directed Duhesme again to advance from Barcelona to Gerona; and General Reille, who commanded the reserve at Perpignan, to collect as many men as he could, relieve Figueras, where four hundred French were closely blockaded by the peasantry, and afterwards carry by assault Rosas and move on Gerona. Reille, with a large convoy guarded by five July 5. thousand men, defeated the Somatenes before Figueras, and raised the blockade of that fortress; but when he attempted a coup-de-main against Rosas, he sustained a July 11. repulse; and finding himself daily more closely straitened by the insurgents, was obliged to retire with considerable loss; he then continued his movement on Gerona. About the same time the Spanish affairs in the whole province acquired a degree of consistency to which they had never previously attained, by the conclusion of a treaty between Lord Collingwood and the Marquis Palacios, governor of the Balearic Isles, in virtue of which the whole disposable 1 Tor. i. 38, force in those islands was conveyed to Catalonia, and, 82, 83. thirteen hundred good troops were directed towards Foy, iv. 169, Gerona. At the same time, Palacios himself, with four Guerre dans thousand five hundred men, and thirty-seven pieces of 17. Casta cannon, landed at Tarragona, where their presence ex- 84. cited an extraordinary degree of enthusiasm.1 Meanwhile Duhesme, with the main body of his forces, July 22. 39. Nap. 172. St-Cyr, la Catal. 14, nos, i. 32, LIV. 1808. 48. ful siege of Atlas, CHAP. six thousand strong, a considerable train of heavy artillery, and everything requisite for a siege, set out from Barcelona and took the road for Gerona. He was long Unsuccess- delayed, however, on the road, which runs close to the Gerona. sea-shore, on the one side by the fire of an English frigate, under the command of LORD COCHRANE, which sent a shower of balls among his columns whenever they came within range, and by the desultory but incessant attacks of the Somatenes on the other. At length, after encountering great difficulties and experiencing a heavy loss, he succeeded in forcing his way, by the hill-road, to Hostalrich, which he summoned in vain to surrender; and, leaving a few troops only to observe its garrison, he, by infinite skill and no small good fortune, avoided the guns of that fortress, and proceeded on to Gerona, under the walls of which he effected a junction with Reille's troops, who had come up from Rosas. Their united strength being now, notwithstanding all their losses, above nine thousand men, operations in form were commenced against the place. Before this could be done, however, the succours from Majorca had been thrown into the town; and as the besiegers were themselves cut off from all communication, both with their reserve magazines at Barcelona and with the frontier of France, by the incessant activity of the peasantry, who lay in wait for and frequently intercepted the convoys, the works advanced very slowly. On the 15th August, however, the breach of Fort Montjuich was declared practicable, and an assault was about to commence, when the besiegers were themselves assailed by a confused but formidable body, ten thousand strong, which appeared in their rear.1 July 24. July 22. Aug. 15. 1 Tor. i. 37. 38. For 172, 185. Cabanes, ii. 62, 74. St Cyr, i. 40, 43. 49. raised by This consisted, one half of regular troops, which the The siege is Count Caldagues had brought up from Tarragona, the the Span- other of Somatenes and Miquelets, with which he had Tarragona, augmented his force during its march along the coast of Catalonia. Count Theodore Lecchi, who was left in iards from |