A people so intelligent, so active, and so high-minded, as the Catalans, were neither to be deceived nor intimidated; and if the inhabitants had not been restrained by obedience to their own government, Barcelona might certainly have been preserved. Duhesme felt himself in danger, and the Spanish troops, as well as the inhabitants, sometimes expressed an impatience, which at any moment might have produced a perilous conflict. The French reported that their passports from Madrid were arrived, and that they were to march for Cadiz as speedily as possible; on the morrow they were to be reviewed preparatory to their march. This welcome news completely deceived the inhabitants, and no surprise was excited by the beat of drum and the movement of battalions at the time appointed. Some regiments were drawn up upon the esplanade which separates the citadel from the town, and a battalion of Italian light troops were stationed upon the road leading from the custom-house to the principal gate of the citadel. At two in the afternoon, an hour when the people, satisfied with the spectacle, had mostly left the streets and returned to their dinner and their _siesta_, General Lechi came to review this body of Italians, and passed on, followed by his aides-de-camp and his staff, into the citadel. The French who were on duty received him under arms, according to military etiquette, and the Spaniards did the same. Under pretence of giving some orders to the officer of the guard, Lechi and his suite halted on the drawbridge, and occupying it by that manœuvre, covered the approach of the infantry. The Italians defiled under cover of the ravelin which defended the gate, and knocked down the first Spanish centinel, whose voice when he would have given the alarm was drowned by the beating of the French drums under the archway. Lechi then advanced; the Spanish part of the guard could make no resistance, their French comrades being ready to act against them in the first moment when the treason was discovered; and immediately afterwards overpowering numbers were upon them. Four battalions followed the first, and the invaders were completely masters of the place. The Spanish governor, Brigadier Santilly, indignant at a treachery against which he should have taken some precautions, presented himself to Lechi as a prisoner of war: he was received however with perfect courtesy, and all protestations of friendship and alliance, which General Lechi, with an effrontery worthy of his master and his cause, made no scruple of repeating in the very act of breaking them. Upon the alarm of this aggression the Spanish and Walloon guards who belonged to the garrison hastened to their post; they were not permitted to enter the citadel till night, by which time the French had secured themselves in possession of the place. Having been admitted, they ranged themselves in arms opposite the French, and in that menacing position the night was passed, and the following