It will be remembered that in the month of February the French general Duhesme had obtained possession of the citadel and forts of Barcelona by a particularly impudent and shameless stratagem[291]. Since that time he had been lying in the city that he had seized, with his whole force concentrated under his hand. Of the 7,000 French and 5,000 Italian troops which composed his corps, all were with him save a single battalion of detachments which had been left behind to garrison Figueras, the fortress close to the French frontier, which commands the most important of the three roads by which the principality of Catalonia can be entered. [291] See pp. 36, 37 of this book. Duhesme believed himself to be entirely secure, for of Spanish regular troops there were barely 6,000 in all scattered through the province[292], and a third of these were Swiss mercenaries, who, according to the orders of Bonaparte, were to be taken at once into the French service. That there was any serious danger to be feared from the _miqueletes_ of the mountains never entered into the heads of the Emperor or his lieutenant. Nor does it seem to have occurred to them that any insurrection which broke out in Catalonia might be immediately supported from the Balearic Isles, where a heavy garrison was always kept, in order to guard against any descent of the British to recover their old stronghold of Port Mahon[293]. If Napoleon had realized in May that the Spanish rising was about to sweep over the whole Peninsula, he would not have dared to leave Duhesme with such a small force. But persisting in his original blunder of believing that the troubles which had broken out were merely local and sporadic, he was about to order Duhesme to make large detachments from a corps that was already dangerously weak. [292] They were the following:-- Regiment of Estremadura 840 strong at Tarrega (near Lerida). Regiment of Ultonia 421 ” Gerona. Two battalions of Wimpfen’s Swiss Regiment 2,149 ” Tarragona. Two battalions of Spanish and Walloon Guards 1,700 ” Barcelona. Cavalry Regiment of Borbon 658 ” ” Artillery 300 ” in various forts on coast. ------ 6,068 [293] The Spanish garrisons in the Balearic Isles consisted of the following troops:--