[303] Brigade of Milosewitz: 2nd Italian Line (2nd batt.) 740 4th ” (3rd batt.) 587 5th ” (2nd batt.) 806 ---- 2,133 Brigade of Schwartz: 1st Neapolitans (1st and 2nd batts.) 1,944 1st Italian _Velites_ (1st batt.) 519 (Minus 300 men lost in the actions at Bruch on June 6 and 14) ----- 2,163 Cavalry: 3rd Provisional Cuirassiers 409 3rd ” Chasseurs 416 Italian _Chasseurs à Cheval_ 504 2nd Neapolitan ” 388 (Minus one squadron left at Barcelona, say 200) ----- 1,517 Artillerymen for eight guns 150 ----- 5,963 Duhesme had resolved to march on Gerona by the comparatively easy road along the sea-coast, rather than by the alternative route which passes further inland by the valley of the Besos and the town of Hostalrich. Even in the lowland, however, he found the _somatenes_ prepared to oppose him. At the castle of Mongat, only six miles outside Barcelona, he met the first swarm 8,000 or 9,000 strong. They had procured a few guns, which they had mounted so as to sweep the road, and lay in disorderly masses along the crest of a rising ground. Duhesme, amusing them in front by a false attack, sent a strong column to turn their right flank: seeing themselves likely to be enveloped, the peasants fled after a short skirmish, in which they suffered considerable loss. Pushing onward, Duhesme arrived that same afternoon at the large open town of Mataro, a place of 20,000 souls given over to the manufacture of glass and cotton goods. The populace had hastily barricaded the outlets of the streets with carts and piles of furniture, and discharged two or three cannon against the approaching enemy. But Milosewitz’s Italian brigade easily burst through the feeble defences and took Mataro by storm. Its attempt at resistance was considered by Duhesme to justify its sack, and he granted the plunder of the town to his men, who only moved on the next day after having thoroughly robbed every dwelling of its portable goods and murdered a considerable number of the inhabitants. The French army of Catalonia was the most motley and undisciplined force of all the imperial hosts in Spain, and for that reason it was by far the most cruel and brutal in its behaviour to the natives, who had not as yet justified any such treatment by their manner of conducting the war. Any ferocity which they showed from this time onward was a well-deserved revenge for what they had suffered.