Leaving Mataro on the eighteenth, Duhesme arrived before Gerona on the twentieth, after burning most of the villages on the road, in revenge for the constant molestation which he suffered from the _somatenes_. He found the city placed in a state of defence, so far as was possible in the case of an old-fashioned fortress called upon to stand a siege at ten days’ notice. There was a small regular garrison, the Irish regiment of Ultonia, under its two lieutenant-colonels, O’Donovan and O’Daly: but this corps only counted 350 bayonets. In addition there were a few trained artillerymen, and the armed citizens of the town, not more than 2,000 in all, for Gerona had but 14,000 inhabitants. The place lies on either side of the small stream of the Oña, just above its confluence with the river Ter. On the south bank is the main part of the town, straggling up the side of a steep hill, which is crowned at its eastern end by an ancient citadel, known (like those of several other Catalonian towns) by the name of Monjuich. Further westward, along the crest of this hill, lie three other forts, those of the Constable, Queen Anne, and the Capuchins. These, like the citadel, are detached works, not connected by any line of wall but only by a ditch. The town, which is completely commanded by the four forts, has no protection on the south side of the Oña but a mediaeval wall, destitute of a ditch and not more than twenty feet high. But on the other side of the river, the northern suburb, known as the Mercadal, having no line of outlying heights to protect it, had been fortified in the style of Vauban with a regular front of five bastions, though, like the fortifications of the city, it was without a ditch.