when Tallard's letter reached
Versailles, the 22nd of June, Marlborough was effecting his junction with
Baden outside the gates of Ulm at Ursprung. The decision of Louis XIV.,
that Tallard should advance beyond the hills in force to the aid of the
Elector, exactly coincides with the appearance of the English General upon
the Danube, and it was on the 23rd of June, the morrow, that the King
wrote to Villeroy the decisive letter recommending Tallard to cross over
from Alsace towards Bavaria with forty battalions and fifty squadrons, say
25,000 men.

But this advance of Tallard's across the Black Forest and his final
junction with the Elector and Marcin before the battle of Blenheim did
not take place until after Marlborough had joined Baden and the march to
the Danube was accomplished. It must therefore be dealt with in the next
division, which is its proper place. For the moment we must return to
Marlborough's advance upon the Danube, which we left at the point where he
crossed the Neckar upon the 3rd and 4th of June. He had, as we have just
seen, and by methods which we have reviewed, completely succeeded in
saving the rest of his advance from interference.

Safe from pursuit, and with no further need for concealing his plan,
Marlborough lingered in the neighbourhood of the Neckar, partly to effect
a full concentration of his forces, partly to rest his cavalry. It was a
week before he found himself at Mundelsheim, between Heilbron and
Stuttgart, and at the foot of the range which still divided him from the
basin of the Danube. Here Eugene, the author of the whole business, met
Marlborough; between them the two men drew up the plans which were to lead
to so momentous a result, and knitted in that same interview a friendship
based upon the mutual recognition of genius, which was to determine seven
years of war.

Upon the 13th of June these great captains met and conferred also with the
Margrave, Louis of Baden, who commanded all the troops in the hills, and
who was to be the third party to their plan. He was a man, cautious, but
able, easily ruffled in his dignity, often foolishly jealous of another's
power. He insisted that Marlborough and he should take command upon
alternate days--he would not serve as second--and in all that followed,
the personal relations between himself and Marlborough grew less and less
cordial up to the eve of the great battle. His prudence and arrangement,
however, his exact synchrony of move