At this time the rebellion against the Spanish crown was evident, led by a brilliant generation of lawyers, such as Joan Pere Fontanella, who was the legal advisor of both the Generalitat and the Consell de Cent (municipal government of Barcelona).

The seizure of ecclesiastical property in Vic by the Royal Court caused revolutionary demonstrations, with defamatory libel and threats of subversion in the field during the spring and summer of 1634.

In 1636 he achieved approval of a provision whereby all sermons in the Principality would be in the Catalan language, in spite of the neutralizing efforts of the archbishop of Tarragona, the Spaniard Antonio Pérez.

According to historian J. H. Elliott, Dalmau de Queralt, Count of Santa Coloma and Viceroy of Catalonia, tried in vain to bribe Claris and Tamarit, individuals uncomfortable about their role in the service of the king.

The intervention of the sheriff Montrodón, commissioned by Dalmau de Queralt to the warehouses of Mataró and Salses, triggered the conflict, in which the lawyer Joan Pere Fontanella again played a prominent role in favor of the theses of the Members of the Government.

Although the city of Barcelona was initially reluctant, it sided with the Members in 1639, especially because of the decision of the Crown to establish a general recovery from Catalonia of 50,000 pounds annually for the years 1639 and 1640.

Behind this new effort was the eagerness of Philip IV and the Count-Duke of Olivares to have all the lands of the Spanish Crown contribute financially to the expenses incurred in the Thirty Years' War, which had already devastated Castile economically.

Finally, the deputies agreed to send Francesc de Tamarit to the front of a new draft of soldiers to recover the castle of Salses, which was achieved on 6 January 1640 (the feastday of the Epiphany).

[2] Regardless of the actual date that contacts with France began, it would end with the formation of a Catalan-French alliance that confronted the Spanish Crown and gave rise to the so-called Reapers' War or Catalan Revolt.

A Council of Arms (Junta General de Braços) was summoned and set up as the ruling institution of the new situation, the commitments with France and the secession were made official, and public debt was issued for funding the military expenses.

France gained Roussillon (including Perpignan) and the northern half of Cerdanya which was separated from Catalonia as result of the Catalan revolt and Pau Claris international politics tacticism.

[7] On 20 February 1641 Claris fell gravely ill, the same day that Philippe de La Mothe-Houdancourt arrived in Barcelona with the powers of commander-in-chief of all French and Catalan armies.