Campo Verde getting intelligence of this design, took post to fight near Calaf, yet when the French approached, his heart failed, and he permitted them to pass. The French general therefore reached Manreza the 7th, and immediately despatched parties towards Vich and other places to mislead the Spaniards, while with his main body he marched by Moya and the Gariga pass to Granollers, where he expected to meet Baraguay d’Hilliers with the convoy from Barcelona; but being disappointed in this, he returned by the Trenta Pasos to Gerona the 10th, and sent his convalescents to Figueras. [Sidenote: 1810. Dec.] [Sidenote: Vacani.] The vicinity of Gerona was now quite exhausted, and fresh convoys from France were required to feed the troops, while the posts in the Ampurdan were re-established and the district reorganized. Macdonald’s muster-rolls presented a force of fifty-one thousand men, of which ten thousand were in hospital, six thousand in Barcelona, and several thousand distributed along the coast and on the lines of communication, leaving somewhat more than thirty thousand disposable for field-operations. Of this number, fourteen thousand were placed under Baraguay d’Hilliers to maintain the Ampurdan, and when the convoys arrived from France the French marshal marched, with the remaining sixteen thousand, for the fourth time, to the succour of Barcelona. His divisions were commanded by Souham and Pino, for Severoli had been recalled to Italy to organize fresh reinforcements; but following his former plan, this march also was made in one solid body, and as the defiles had been cut up by the Spaniards, and the bridge over the Tordera broken, Macdonald set his troops to labour, and in six hours opened fresh ways over the hills on the right and left of the Trenta Pasos, and so, without opposition, reached the more open country about Granollers and Moncada. The Spaniards then retired by their own left to Tarasa and Caldas, but Macdonald continued to move on in a solid body upon Barcelona; for as he was resolved not to expose himself to a dangerous attack, so he avoided all enterprise. Thus, on the 23d, he would not permit Pino to improve a favourable opportunity of crushing the Catalans in his front, and on the 24th, after delivering his convoy and sending the carts back to Belgarde, instead of pursuing Campo Verde to Tarasa, as all the generals advised, he marched towards the Llobregat; and as Souham and Pino remained discontented at Barcelona, their divisions were given to Frere and Fontanes.