Whilst Philip was still trifling in Madrid with the usual merrymakings at the Retiro to celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi in June 1640, there came flying news from Barcelona that the threatened tempest had burst. The Catalans, driven to desperation by the exactions and insolence of the polyglot rabble of troops quartered upon them, had risen and massacred every Castilian soldier and officer they could hound down. Santa Coloma himself in flight had sunk by the wayside, and had been hacked to death by his maddened countrymen; and from Barcelona through all Catalonia the fiery cross had been borne with cries, it is true, {343} of "Long Live the King"; but still louder shouts of "Vengeance," "Liberty," and "Down with the Government." In a vain attempt to stem the flood the old Duke of Cardona was reappointed Viceroy; and, after his death shortly afterwards, was succeeded by the aged Archbishop of Barcelona. But it was too late, and anarchy soon ruled unchecked. Cardinal Borja, himself a Valencian and an active minister of Philip's thenceforward, openly declared in the Royal Council at Madrid that "the revolt could only be drowned in rivers of blood." Again the screw had to be turned, and Olivares was almost in despair. But he worked like a giant, cajoling and humouring Braganza and the Portuguese nobles into what he hoped was a better frame of mind, whilst he depleted the Portuguese frontier of the forces with which he had up to that time terrorised the sister kingdom. The details of the Secession War in Catalonia cannot be told here.[25] Suffice to say that again Philip, supported by the enemies of Olivares, clamoured to be allowed to lead his troops against the rebel subjects; but it suited the minister to keep him amused with poetical academies, comedies, amours, and devotions, rather than to bring him in touch with realities, and enable him to learn the whole of the dire truth.