they
broke it down. Upon the far side of the river in front of their camp the
French further established a battery of heavy guns upon that slight slope
which is now crowned by the Fort of Sainghin, and Kinsky could not force
the passage until the fifth column, or at any rate the head of it, should
begin to appear upon his left.

It will be seen upon the frontispiece map that when the Arch-Duke's men
reached Pont-a-Marcq and crossed the river there, they would take the
French camp and the main French forces there in reserve, weaken the power
of the French resistance at the Bridge of Bouvines, afford Kinsky the
opportunity of crossing at that point, and that, immediately after that
crossing, Kinsky and the Arch-Duke, having joined hands, would be in
sufficient strength to push back the French from Sainghin and to march up
north together towards Mouveaux. The appearance of their combined force at
Mouveaux by noon would fulfil the time-table, and at mid-day of Saturday,
if the time-table were thus fulfilled, the whole combined force of the
second, third, fourth, and fifth columns would have been astraddle of the
Lille-Courtrai Road, would have cut off Souham's corps from Lille, and
could await Clerfayt if he had not yet arrived. When, therefore, the
Arch-Duke and the fifth column should have crossed the Marque at
Pont-a-Marcq, the fortunes of the fourth column would have blended with
it, and the story of the two would have been one. We may therefore leave
Kinsky still waiting anxiously in front of the broken bridge at Bouvines
for news of the Arch-Duke, and conclude the picture of the whole advance
from the Scheldt by describing what had happened and was happening to that
Commander and his great force of 17,000 to 18,000 men.

(B) THE FIFTH COLUMN UNDER THE ARCH-DUKE CHARLES

When the Arch-Duke Charles had let Kinsky know upon the day before, the
Friday, that he could not be at the appointed post of Pont-a-Marcq by the
next daybreak, he had implied that somewhere in the early morning of that
Saturday, at least, he would be there. Exactly how early neither he nor
Kinsky could tell. His troops had sixteen full miles to march; they had
but one road by which to advance, and they were fatigued with the enormous
exertion of that hurried march northward to St Amand, which has already
been set down.

Such were the delays at St Amand in preparing that advance, that the night
was far gone before the fifth column took the road to P