No important event occurred after the skirmish in which Eugenio fell, until the 3d of March, when the Spaniards having observed that the garrison of Tortoza was weakened by the detachment at Perillo, endeavoured to cut the latter off, intending if successful to assault Tortoza itself. At the same time they also attacked the fort of San Filippe, but failed, and the French at Perillo effected their retreat although with considerable loss. This attempt was however followed by a more important effort. On the 19th of March, Campo Verde having assembled eight thousand men at Molinos del Rey, four thousand at Guisols, and three thousand at Igualada, prepared to surprise the city and forts of Barcelona, for he had, as he thought, corrupted the town-major of Monjuic. Trusting to this treason, he first sent eight hundred chosen grenadiers in the night by the hills of Hospitalette, to enter that place, and they descended into the ditch in expectation of having the gate opened; but Maurice Mathieu, apprized of the plan, had prepared every thing to receive this unfortunate column, which was in an instant overwhelmed with fire. Napoleon now changed the system of the war. All that part of Catalonia west of the Upper Llobregat, and from Igualada by Ordal to the sea, including the district of Tortoza, was placed under Suchet’s government, and seventeen thousand of Macdonald’s troops were united to the third corps, which was thus augmented to forty-two thousand men, and took the title of the “_Army of Aragon_.” It was destined to besiege Taragona, while Macdonald, whose force was thus reduced to twenty-seven thousand under arms, including fifteen thousand in garrison and in the Ampurdan, was restricted to the upper part of Catalonia. His orders were to attack Cardona, Berga, Seu d’Urgel, and Montserrat, and to wear down Martinez, Manso, Rovira, and other chiefs, who kept in the mountains between Olot and the Cerdaña: and a division of five thousand men, chiefly composed of national guards, was also ordered to assemble at Mont Louis, for the purpose of acting in the Cerdaña, and on the rear of the partizans in the high valleys. By these means the line of operations for the invasion of Catalonia was altered from France to Aragon, the difficulties were lessened, the seventh corps reduced in numbers, became, instead of the principal, the secondary army; and Macdonald’s formal method was thus exchanged for the lively vigorous talent of Suchet. But the delay already caused in the siege of Tortoza, could never be compensated; Suchet had been kept on the Ebro, when he should have been on the Guadalaviar, and this enabled the Murcians to keep the fourth corps in Grenada, when it should have been on the Tagus aiding Massena. CHAPTER IV. [Sidenote: 1811. March.]