So ended the first attempt on Gerona, to the great credit of its gallant defenders, and more especially to that of the weak Irish regiment which had borne the brunt of the fighting. Duhesme’s whole campaign bore a singular resemblance to that which Moncey was making at the same moment in Valencia, and, like it, was wrecked on the initial blunder of supposing that Spanish towns, defended by a population in a high state of patriotic enthusiasm, could be carried by escalade without any proper preparation by artillery. French generals soon got to know their adversaries better: the same levies that could be easily scattered in the open field were formidable under cover of stone walls. On returning to Barcelona, Duhesme found that the insurgents of Central Catalonia had drawn close to the capital in his absence. Eight or ten thousand _somatenes_ had come down to the line of the Llobregat, had broken its bridges, had entrenched themselves opposite its fords, and were preparing to blockade Barcelona. They had brought up a considerable number of guns taken from the batteries on the coast, which had so long kept watch upon the English. But of regular troops there were only a few present--a mixed body of 400 men from Lerida, and some small remnants of the old Spanish garrison of Barcelona. The command seems to have been held by Juan Baget, a lawyer of Lerida, who had been named colonel of _miqueletes_ by the Junta of his native town. Duhesme was determined not to be deprived of his hold on the coast-plain by this tumultuary army. On the thirtieth he sallied out from Barcelona with Goulas’s French brigade and three of Lecchi’s Italian battalions, accompanied by the cuirassiers of Bessières. Though the line of the Llobregat is marked by steep banks, and though a considerable number of guns were mounted behind it, the position was too long and too much exposed to be capable of defence by undisciplined bands of mountaineers. While the Italians menaced its front, Goulas and Bessières forded the river and turned the flank of the Catalans. Chased out from the villages of San Boy and Molins de Rey by a sweeping charge, they were pursued across the plain, stripped of all their artillery, and forced to take refuge in their old positions along the edge of the mountains of Montserrat, after losing a considerable number of men.