Dominique Catherine de Pérignon commanded the French army and Domingo Salvator Izquierdo led the Spanish defenders.

Roses is a coastal city in northeastern Spain, located 43 kilometres (27 mi) northeast of Girona, Catalonia.

Pérignon and his lieutenant Pierre François Sauret soon realized that an outlying fort was the key to Roses and concentrated their energy on reducing it.

General of Division Dominique Catherine de Pérignon assumed command of the French army and quickly occupied the city of Figueres.

Admiral Federico Carlos Gravina y Napoli's fleet of 13 ships of the line and 45 other vessels lay in the Bay of Roses.

By this time Pérignon realized that the Castillo de la Trinidad, whose fire caused serious damage to the besiegers, was the key position.

The French soldiers, whose nickname for the Castillo was le Bouton de Rose (the Pimple), managed to haul three batteries to the summit by 25 December.

By 25 January, when wintry weather compelled Sauret to suspend siege operations, Urrutia's army had grown menacingly large.

The French army commander staged obvious preparations for a full-scale assault, such as the display of scaling ladders in the trenches.

Izquierdo ordered the surviving members of the garrison to be evacuated by Gravina's squadron on the night of 3 February, leaving a 300-man rear guard behind to cover the operation.

[6] Annoyed that Pérignon was unable to advance beyond the Fluvià, the French government replaced him at the end of May 1795 with General of Division Barthélemy Louis Joseph Schérer.