The French soldiers now became sickly from the hardships of a march rendered oppressive by the severity of their discipline, and many also deserted; yet others, who had before gone off, returned to their colours, reinforcements arrived from France, and the emperor’s orders to take the field were becoming so pressing, that Macdonald, giving Baraguay d’Hilliers the command of the Ampurdan, marched on the 8th of August with a third convoy for Barcelona, resolved at last to co-operate with Suchet. Instructed by experience he however moved this time with less formality, and having reached Barcelona the 11th, deposited his convoy, appointed Maurice Mathieu governor of that city, and on the 15th forced the pass of Ordal, and reached Villa Franca with about sixteen thousand men under arms. O’Donnel, still smarting from the affair at Tortoza, retired before him to Taragona without fighting, but directed Campo Verde to leave a body of troops under general Martinez in the mountains about Olot, and to move himself through Montserrat to the district of Garriga, which lies between Lerida and Tortoza; meanwhile the seventh corps passed by Braffin and Valls into the plain of Reus, and as we have seen opened the communication with Suchet, but to how little purpose shall be shewn in the next chapter. CHAPTER II. [Sidenote: 1810. August.] As the Spanish general knew that the French could at Reus find provisions for only a few days, he withdrew his division from Falcet, and while Campo Verde, coming into the Garriga, occupied the passes behind them, and other troops were placed in the defiles between Valls and Villafranca, he held the main body of his army concentrated at Taragona, ready to fall upon Macdonald whenever he should move. This done, he became extremely elated, for like all Spaniards he imagined that to surround an enemy was the perfection of military operations. Macdonald cared little for the vicinity of the Catalan troops, but he had not yet formed sufficient magazines at Barcelona to commence the siege of Taragona, nor could he, as O’Donnel had foreseen, procure more than a few days supply about Reus, he therefore relinquished all idea of a siege and proposed to aid Suchet in the operation against Tortoza, if the latter would feed the seventh corps; and pending Suchet’s decision he resolved to remove to Lerida.