The check at Roda forced Reille to turn aside more troops against Eroles--practically the whole of Severoli’s division was added to the column which had just been defeated, and on March 13th such a force marched against him that he was compelled to retire, drawing his pursuers after him toward the upper course of the Noguera, and ultimately to seek refuge in the wilds of Talarn among the foot-hills of the higher Pyrenees. His operations with a trifling force paralysed nearly half Reille’s army during two critical months of the spring of 1812. Meanwhile, covered by his demonstration, Sarsfield executed a destructive raid across the French border, overran the valleys beyond Andorra, and exacted a ransom of 70,000 dollars from Foix, the chief town of the department of the Arriège (February 19). This was the best possible reply to Napoleon’s recent declaration that Catalonia had become French soil. The Emperor was naturally enraged; he reiterated his orders to Reille to ‘déloger les insurgents: il n’est que trop vrai qu’ils se nourrissent de France’--’il faut mettre un terme à ces insultes [93].’ But though Reille pushed his marches far into the remote mountainous districts where the borders of Aragon and Catalonia meet, he never succeeded in destroying the bands which he was set to hunt down: a trail of burnt villages marked his course, but it had no permanent result. The inhabitants descended from the hills, to reoccupy their fields and rebuild their huts, when he had passed by, and the insurgents were soon prowling again near the forts of Lerida, Barbastro, and Monzon. [93] Napoleon to Berthier, March 8th, 1812. Palombini in southern Aragon had equally unsatisfactory experiences. Coming up from Valencia by the high-road, he had reached Teruel on February 19th, and, after relieving and strengthening the garrison there, set out on a circular sweep, with the intention of hunting down Gayan and Duran--the Conde de Montijo had just returned to the Murcian army at this moment[94], while the Empecinado was out of the game for some weeks, being, as we shall presently see, busy in New Castile. But the movements of the Italian general were soon complicated by the fact that Villacampa, with the remnants of his division, had started from the neighbourhood of Alicante and Murcia much at the same time as himself, to seek once more his old haunts in Aragon. This division had given a very poor account of itself while serving as regular troops under Blake, but when it returned to its native mountains assumed a very different efficiency in the character of a large guerrilla band. Appearing at first only 2,000 strong, it recruited itself up to a much greater strength from local levies, and became no mean hindrance to Palombini’s operations. [94] Apparently about the same time that Villacampa and his division came up to replace him in Aragon.