Tarragona now seemed in imminent danger, and both Musnier at Tortosa and Maurice Mathieu at Barcelona saw that they must do their best to relieve the place, or it would be starved out. Musnier spent so much time in organizing a convoy that he was late, and the actual opening of the road was carried out by the governor of Barcelona. That great city chanced to be crammed with troops at the moment, since Lamarque’s division, which had escorted the December convoy, was still lying within its walls. Maurice Mathieu, therefore, was able to collect 8,000 men for the march on Tarragona. Eroles, unfortunately for himself, was not aware of this, and believing that the enemy was a mere sally of the Barcelona garrison, offered them battle at Altafulla on January 24. The French had marched by night, and a fog chanced to prevent the Catalans from recognizing the strength of the two columns that were approaching them. Eroles found himself committed to a close fight with double his own numbers, and after a creditable resistance was routed, losing his only two guns and the rearguard with which he tried to detain the enemy. His troops only escaped by breaking up and flying over the hills, in what a French eye-witness described as _un sauve-qui-peut général_. About 600 of them in all were slain or taken: the rest assembled at Igualada three days later. Eroles blamed Lacy and Sarsfield for his disaster, asserting that the Captain-General had promised to send the division of the latter to his help. But his anger appears to have been misplaced, for at this very time Decaen, to make a division in favour of Maurice Mathieu’s movement, had sent out two columns from Gerona and Figueras into Upper Catalonia. They occupied Vich, Lacy’s recent head-quarters, on January 22, two days before the combat of Altafulla, and Sarsfield’s troops were naturally sent to oppose them. After wasting the upper valleys, Decaen drew back to Gerona and Olot on the 29th, having sufficiently achieved his purpose. Tarragona, meanwhile, was thoroughly revictualled by Musnier, who brought up a large convoy from Tortosa. Reinforcements were also thrown into the place, and a new governor, General Bertoletti, who was to distinguish himself by a spirited defence in the following year.