But a few weeks before it had seemed that Spain was his, and that the forces at his disposal were ample to crush out the insurrection in Barcelona, and to sweep into the sea the handful of the invaders.

But all his plans had been baffled, all his hopes brought to naught by the genius and energy of one man, in spite of that man being thwarted at every turn by the imbecile German coterie who surrounded the king, and by the jealousy and ill will of his fellow generals.
Bad news met the fugitive at Roussillon.

There he heard that his countrymen had suffered a disastrous defeat at Ramillies; that nearly all the Netherlands had been wrested from France; that a heavy defeat had been inflicted upon her at Turin, and that Italy was well nigh lost.
It needed, indeed, but the smallest amount of unanimity, enterprise, and confidence on the part of the advisers and generals of King Charles to have placed him securely and permanently upon the throne of Spain.
When the flight of the besieging army was discovered after daybreak by the besieged, they poured out from Barcelona into the deserted camp.

All the ordnance and stores of the French had been abandoned.

Two hundred heavy brass guns, thirty mortars, and a vast quantity of shot, shells, and intrenching tools, three thousand barrels of powder, ten thousand sacks of corn, and a vast quantity of provisions and stores were found left behind in the camp.