en
after receiving orders from his sovereign, and had finally obtained, by
his unshakable determination, a capitulation of the most honourable kind,
was fresh in the minds of all. There is a story that on his arrival in the
French camp the cheers with which he was greeted reached the opposing
line, and that the allies were moved by the enormous rumour to expect an
instant assault. He was one of those leaders who, partly through their
legend, more through their real virtue, are a sort of flag and symbol to
the soldiery who have the good fortune to receive their command.

Nine years the senior in age of Villars, of a military experience far
superior, in rank again possessed of the right to supreme command (for he
had received the grade of marshal long before), he none the less
determined to put himself wholly at Villars' orders, for he knew of what
importance was continuity of direction in the face of the enemy. At the
end of the last campaign, when he had expected peace, he had honourably
retired. His life was nearing its close; in two years he was to die. He
sacrificed both the pretension and the fact of superiority so dear to the
commander, and told Villars that he came simply as a volunteer to aid as
best he might, and to support the supreme command in the coming fight.

He had arrived at Arras on the same day that Tournai had surrendered. Upon
the morrow he had reached Villars' headquarters near Douai, Sin le Noble,
in the centre of the defensive line. He had followed the easterly
movement of the mass of the French army along that line to their present
establishment between the two woods and to the terrain whereupon the
action would be decided. In that action he was set at the head of the
troops on the right, while Villars, attending in particular to the left,
retained the general command and ordered all the disposition of the French
force.

* * * * *

The landscape which lay before the French commanders when upon the Monday
morning their line was drawn up and immediate battle expected, has changed
hardly at all in the two hundred years between their day and ours. I will
describe it.

From the valley of the Sambre (which great river lies a day's march to the
south of the French position) the land rises gradually upward in long
rolls of bare fields. At the head of this slope is a typical watershed
country, a country that is typical of watersheds in land neither hilly nor
mountainous