St. Cyr entered Barcelona on the following morning, ill satisfied with Duhesme for not having interposed to cut off the fugitives; and still more displeased when he found that the distress of the garrison for provisions had been greatly exaggerated, and that in consequence of these false representations he had been compelled to undertake a march so perilous that nothing but the gross incapacity of his opponents ♦DEC. 20.♦ could have saved the army from[2] destruction. He rested his men three days, and on the fourth took a position on the left bank of the Llobregat in face of the Spaniards, that they might have no time to strengthen themselves in the advantageous post which they occupied, nor to be joined by the troops under Lazan and Milans. But these officers had no intention of joining; and Reding, upon whom the temporary command had devolved, was less able than a Spaniard would have been to struggle with the difficulties in which he found himself. A Spanish General would neither have foreseen defeat nor have been cast down by it; he would have thought a change of fortune as likely as a change of weather; he would have relied upon the Saints and the Virgin, his good cause and the insuperable constancy of his countrymen. But Reding saw only the fearful realities of his situation; he knew that his own knowledge of the art of war was of no avail when he could depend neither upon officers nor men; and his sole hope was, that a speedy and honourable death might remove him from the sight of calamities which he deemed it impossible to avert. A more pitiable condition cannot be conceived, ... except that of the brave and honourable men employed against him, who from a sense of military duty served with their utmost efforts a cause which they knew to be infamously unjust, and acting in obedience to a merciless tyrant with miscreants worthy of such a master, aided and abetted crimes at which their hearts revolted ... sinning thus against God and man, against the light of conscience and against their own souls. ♦INDECISION OF THE SPANIARDS. DEC. 18.♦