A significant event of the Peninsular War, France's Grande Armée lay siege to the town of Girona for seven months.

Though badly outnumbered, the Spanish defenders forced a lengthy siege, and a large French army was pinned down for an entire campaigning season.

Taking command of the city on 1 February 1809, Álvarez immediately started preparing its defense, requesting provisions for 7,000 men.

The women of the town organized into a Company of Santa Barbara to care for the sick and wounded, transport ammunition, and other tasks.

[5] On 1 April, Álvarez proclaimed his famous edict, to the effect that if the city were attacked, he would immediately execute anybody that mentioned surrender or capitulation.

The French did not attack there, however, fearing the dangers of artillery fire from the heights of Girona and the difficulty of street fighting after their recent experience in the second siege of Zaragoza earlier in the year.

The wall fortifications were augmented by surrounding bastions such as La Merced and Santa Maria by the Onyar to the south and north of Girona, respectively, and the several forts and redoubts (Capuchins, Chapter, Calvary, etc.)

After bloody hand-to-hand combat and repeated assaults were repulsed, the French finally abandoned the attempt and retreated.

[1] Towards the end of September, General Saint-Cyr left his command, angered by the fact he was to be replaced as the head of the French and Allied force.

[2] After the bloody engagements of August and September, the French adopted a more patient strategy, attempting to force surrender by starvation and disease.

As described by Charles Oman in his A History of the Peninsular War (1908), Girona[1] ... presented a melancholy vista of houses roofless, or with one or two of the side-walls knocked in, of streets blocked by the fallen masonry of churches or towers, under which half-decayed corpses were partially buried.

The open spaces were strewn with broken muskets, bloody rags, wheels of disabled guns and carts, fragments of shells, and the bones of horses and mules whose flesh had been eaten.

The stench was so dreadful that Augereau had to keep his troops out of the place, lest infection should be bred among them.In spite of Álvarez's poor health, the French imprisoned him and the other officers from Girona at Perpignan, France on 23 December.

[7][8][1][6] Owing to the long delays and heavy losses suffered by the French, the town's resistance served Spanish purposes, however.

[2] The success of the Spanish in repelling the 19 September attack was commemorated in 1864 by a painting by Ramón Martí Alsina entitled The Great Day of Girona.