[29] I know not why Napier, contrasting Gerona with Saragossa (ii. 251), says that at the former place the regular garrison was 3,000, the armed multitude ‘less than 6,000.’ When it is remembered that its total population was 14,000 souls--of whom some fled to places of safety before the siege began--and that it had already raised two battalions of miqueletes with 1,360 bayonets out of its able-bodied male inhabitants, it is difficult to see how more than 5,000 armed irregulars are to be procured, for in a population of 14,000 souls there cannot be more than some 3,000 men between eighteen and forty-five. As a matter of fact (see documents in Arteche, vii. Appendix 5), the ‘Crusade’ was about 1,100 strong at most. For the first two months of the siege Alvarez received no help whatever from without: in May the central government of Catalonia had been left in a perfectly paralysed condition, when Blake went off himself and took with him the best of the regular troops, in order to engage in the campaign of Alcañiz and Maria. Coupigny, the interim commander at Tarragona, had only 6,000 organized men, and he and the Catalan provincial junta were during that month much engrossed with an enterprise which distracted them from the needs of Gerona. A wide-spread conspiracy had been formed within the walls of Barcelona, with the object of rising against the garrison in St. Cyr’s absence. A secret committee of priests, merchants, and retired officers had collected all the arms in the city, smuggled in many muskets from without, and enlisted several thousand persons in a grand design for an outbreak and a sort of ‘Sicilian Vespers’ fixed--after two postponements--for the 11th of May. They opened communication with Coupigny and with the captains of the British frigates blockading the port. The one was to bring his troops to the gates, the others to deliver an attack on the port, upon the appointed night. No Spaniard betrayed the plot, though 6,000 citizens are said to have been in the secret, but it was frustrated by two foreigners. Conscious that the town could not be freed if the citadel of Monjuich was retained by the French, the conspirators sounded two Italian officers named Captain Dottori, fort adjutant of Monjuich, and Captain Provana, who was known to be discontented and thought to be corruptible. They offered them an immense bribe--1,000,000 dollars, it is said--to betray the postern of Monjuich to the troops of Coupigny, who were to be ready in the ditch at midnight. But they had mistaken their men: the officers conferred with Duhesme, and consented to act as _agents provocateurs_: they pretended to join the conspiracy, were introduced to and had interviews with the chiefs, and informed the governor. On the morning before the appointed date many of the leaders were arrested. Duhesme placed guards in every street, and proclaimed that he knew all. The citizens remained quiet in their despair, the chiefs