St. Cyr was quite well aware that if General Vives were to resign the blockade of Barcelona to his _miqueletes_ and _somatenes_, and to come against him with his whole army, the task of relieving Duhesme would be dangerous if not impossible. There are but two roads from Gerona to Barcelona, and across each of them lie half a dozen positions which, if entrenched and held by superior numbers, he could not hope to force. These two routes are the coast-road by Mataro and Arens de Mar--which the French had used for their first march to Gerona in August--and the inland road up the valley of the Besos by Hostalrich and Granollers. But the former had been so conscientiously destroyed by Lord Cochrane and the local _somatenes_[66] that St. Cyr regarded it as impassable; there were places where it had been blasted away for lengths of a quarter or a half of a mile. Moreover, at many points the army would have to defile under the cliffs for long distances, and might be shelled by any British men-of-war that should happen to lie off the coast[67]. Accordingly the French general determined to try the inland road, though he would have to march round Gerona and the smaller fortress of Hostalrich, and though it was cut by several admirable positions, where the Catalans might offer battle with reasonable prospects of success. It was all-important that Vives should be left as long as possible in uncertainty as to his adversary’s next move, and that the Catalans should be dealt with in detail rather than in mass. St. Cyr resolved, therefore, to make a show of attacking Gerona, and to try whether he could not catch Lazan and Alvarez, and rout them, before the Captain-General should come up to their assistance. [66] See vol. i. p. 331. [67] St. Cyr, _Journal de l’Armée de Catalogne_, p. 58.