Rovira, who was a doctor in theology as well as a colonel, and regarded the contest to which he had devoted himself as a holy war, fixed upon Passion week as the fittest time for the attempt: there could be no season so proper for it, he thought, as that on which the church was celebrating ♦APRIL 6.♦ the sufferings and death of Christ[24]! Accordingly, on Palm Sunday he assembled his division in the village of Esquirol, and when they were drawn up, addressing them, says the Spanish relator, like another Gideon, he desired that every man who was willing to accompany him in an expedition of great peril, but of the highest importance and greatest honour, should step out of the line; 500 men immediately volunteered, all of the second Catalan legion. The same appeal was made to another detachment at S. Privat, and ninety-two of the battalion of Almogavares, and 462 of the Expatriates, as those Catalans were called who came from parts of the country which the French possessed, offered themselves. The two parties formed a junction that night at Ridaura, and marched the next day, by roads which were almost impracticable, to Oix, a village close upon the French border. From thence they proceeded on the 8th by Sadernes, Gitarriu, and Cofi, to Llorena, taking this direction in order that the enemy and the men themselves might be induced to believe it was their intention to make an incursion into France. The alarm spread along the border as they wished; the somaten was rung; the French peasantry, and about 300 troops of the line, collected at S. Laurent de Sardas, and remained under arms for thirty hours. At noon on the 9th, the Catalans left Llorena, and proceeded in a direction toward Figueras as far as the wood of Villarit, where they concealed themselves in a glen till night came: it had rained heavily all day, and a strong north wind was blowing, nevertheless orders were given that no man should kindle a fire on pain of death. ♦ROVIRA TAKES IT BY SURPRISE.♦