page_title: Battle of Sant Esteve d'en Bas
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Sant Esteve d'en Bas / Background
context_page_description: The Battle of Sant Esteve d'en Bas took place on 10 March 1695 in the Catalan front of the War of the Grand Alliance. It was fought between a column of French regular infantry under Brigadier Urbain Le Clerc de Juigné, governor of the nearby French-occupied Castellfollit de la Roca, and 16 companies of Catalan miquelets and several armed peasants at the orders of Ramon de Sala i Saçala, the veguer of the town of Vic. Juigné's force was in a punitive expedition to burn the village of Sant Esteve d'en Bas, whose inhabitants had refused to pay war contributions to the French army, when it was attacked by the Catalan militia and nearly destroyed in two separate engagements.
  The first and more bloody fight took place at the wood of Malatosquera and the bridge of Sant Roc, where the French lost 500 men killed or wounded. Defeated, Juigné and his remaining troops fled to Olot, where they entrenched themselves in a convent. The Catalans forced the French to surrender by setting the building on fire. At the slight cost of 7 men killed and 5 wounded, the miquelets and peasants under Sala i Saçala killed 260 French soldiers and took 826 prisoners. Juigné was among the first.
context_section_description: Catalonia was one of the main fronts of the Nine Years' War. However, lack of means and poor relations with the peasantry due to the Revolt of the Barretinas marked for the Spanish Viceroy of Catalonia, the Duke of Villahermosa, the early stage of the conflict. In 1689 the Admiral of Castile, Juan Gaspar Enríquez de Cabrera, said to the Spanish Council of State that "the best relief that Catalonia can have are the outer capabilities, what would be done from Flanders, from Milan and from Navarre". The French army under the Duke of Noailles, however, was also short of resources, and attrition warfare prevailed on the first four years of the war. In 1694, Louis XIV committed more resources to his army in Catalonia, and Noailles managed to break the Spanish defenses, defeating the Spanish army at the battle of Torroella, on the banks of the Ter river, and seizing the ports of Roses, Palamós and Cadaqués, and the important city of Girona.
  In 1695 the French command found that the inhabitants of the areas occupied by the French army were reluctant to pay war contributions and started to oppose an organized and growingly successful resistance. During the winter of 1694-1695, the inhabitants of Calella repelled a punishment force of 800 or 1,000 French soldiers from the Blanes garrison and killed between 60 or 100 of them. French troops were also harassed by Catalan militia forces, the miquelets, who laid ambushes to Noailles' forces from woods and heights. One of the most effective leaders of the miquelets was Captain Ramon de Sala i Saçala, the veguer of Vic, who achieved two victories over the French during the winter: on late December he overran a convoy on way to Hostalric, killing 25 French soldiers and taking 25 prisoners, and on 24 February he defeated a company of French dragoons at Navata, killing 7 of them and taking 28 prisoners and 32 horses.
  One of the villages that refused to pay the French was Sant Esteve d'en Bas. Despite a French party looted the place in punishment, the villagers still refused to obey. A force of 700 soldiers was dispatched on 28 December to arrest the aldermen, but they found the village abandoned and sacked it again, taking with them two priests as hostages. In March 1695, as the locals were still rebellious, Monsieur de Saint-Sylvestre, the French governor of Girona, ordered Brigadier Juigné, commander of the garrison of Castellfollit, to punish the village for the third time in command of 1,300 chosen men from his own garrison and those of Figueres, Banyoles and Besalú. These troops were taken from the German Alsace regiment, the Swiss Manuel and Schellenberg regiments, and the French Royal-Artillery regiment.  Philippe de Courcillon, a famous French diarist, labeled them as "of the best troops of that country".
caption: Portrait of Anne Jules de Noailles by Hyacinthe Rigaud, 1691. Grenoble, musée des Beaux-arts
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