The outbreak in 1640 of the Reapers' War, or the Catalan Uprising against the Spanish Monarchy, left most of the Principality in hands of the rebels and their French allies by mid-1641. The Spanish forces were restricted to the area around Tarragona and Tortosa in the south and the County of Roussillon in the north, besides a series of isolated ports along the coast. The French viceroy of Catalonia, Philippe de La Mothe-Houdancourt, attempted to conquer Tarragona between May and August, but failed, as a French blockading fleet under Henri d'Escoubleau de Sourdis was not big enough to prevent the entrance into Tarragona of a large Spanish relief convoy. Sourdis had been never very enthusiastic of blockading Tarragona and preferred to focus all the efforts in capturing Collioure to starve the Spanish army in Perpignan. Cardinal Richelieu replaced him with his nephew Jean Armand de Maillé-Brézé, but for the 1642 campaign he followed his plans and committed most of his forces to conquer Rousillon.