Less successful was another stroke against the insurgents which Duhesme endeavoured to deal five days later. General Chabran, with the Italian brigade that had been left at Mataro, a regiment of French cavalry and a field-battery, moved out to clear the hills above the coast, and to sweep the valley of the Besos. He had before him the _somatenes_ of the regions about Vich, Hostalrich, and Santa Coloma, under Francisco Milans, a half-pay lieutenant-colonel, who had been placed at their head by the local Junta. Chabran forced his way for some distance inland till he reached Granollers, always harassed but never seriously attacked by the insurgents. Milans, who showed all through his career a real genius for guerilla warfare, had ordered his levies never to stand when pressed, but to hang about the enemy’s line of march, cut off his pickets and scouting parties, and fall upon the baggage-train which trailed at the rear of his column. These tactics were perfectly successful: having reached Granollers after a most toilsome march, Chabran refused to push further among the mountains, turned back, and retreated to Mataro, accompanied home by the _somatenes_, who pursued him to the very outskirts of the town, and cut off his stragglers and many of his baggage animals [July 4]. The moment that the Catalan insurrection grew serious, Duhesme had sent repeated appeals for help to the Emperor: the land route to Perpignan being cut, he had to use small vessels which put out to sea at night, risked capture by the English ships lying off the coast, and when fortunate reached the harbours of Collioure or Port-Vendres, just beyond the Pyrenees. Napoleon looked upon the Catalonian war as a very small matter, but he was fully resolved that Duhesme must be succoured. Accordingly he determined to concentrate a division at Perpignan, but he refused to allot to it any of his veteran French troops. He swept together from the Southern Alps and Piedmont a most heterogeneous body of 7,000 or 8,000 men, even worse in quality than the motley army which he had entrusted to Duhesme. The command was entrusted to a capable officer, General Reille, one of the Emperor’s aides-de-camp, who was told to advance and relieve Figueras, after which he was to stretch out his hand to Duhesme, who would push northward to meet him. His improvised army consisted of two battalions of recruits just levied in the lately annexed duchy of Tuscany, and constituting the nucleus of a new regiment with the number 113, of a battalion of national guards, some mobilized gendarmerie, a battalion of the ‘Legion of Reserve of the Alps’ from Grenoble, five ‘battalions of detachments,’ and the single battalion which formed the contingent of the little republic of the Valais[306]. The cavalry comprised two squadrons of Tuscan dragoons, and two _escadrons de marche_ of French cuirassiers and chasseurs. There seem to have been no more than two batteries of artillery allotted to the force[307].