“Marshal Villars had near sixty thousand men, and such a gang of ragamuffins, Mr. Washington, you never saw. But they’d rather fight than eat; and let an old soldier tell you, sir, whenever you meet the French, don’t count on licking ’em because they are half starved and half naked; I believe they fight better the worse off they are for victuals and clothes. The duke spent two or three weeks studying their works, and when he got through with it he knew more about them than Marshal Villars himself did. The summer had come, and the streams were no longer swollen, and the duke begun to lay his plans to trap old Villars. The first thing he did was to have a lot of earthworks thrown up at the place where he did not intend to break through the French lines. The French, of course, got wind of this, and drew all their forces away from Vitry, where the duke really meant to break through and cross the Sanset. All the Frenchmen were fooled, and Marshal Villars the worst of all. So when, one bright morning in July, the French scouts reported that Marlborough himself, with fifty squadrons of horse, was on the march for the earthworks he had made where he did not mean to cross, old Villars was cocksure he had him. The duke with his fifty squadrons marched a good day’s march away from Vitry, the French scampering off in his direction and concentrating their troops just where the duke wanted them. Meanwhile, every mother’s son of us was in marching order--the artillery ready, the pontoons ready, everybody and everything ready. About midday, seeing the French had been fooled, the order was given to march, and off we put for Vitry. As soon as we reached the river we laid the pontoons, and were drawn up on the bank just waiting for the word to cross. It was then late in the evening, but we had got news that the duke had turned around, and was making for us as fast as the horses of his squadrons could lay their hoofs to the ground. About nine o’clock we saw the dust of the advance guard down the highway; we heard the galloping of the horses long before. The instant the duke appeared the crossing begun, and by sunrise thirty thousand men had crossed and had joined General Hompesch’s division of ten thousand between Oise and Estrum--and now we were within Villars’s lines without striking a blow. ’Twas one of the greatest marches that ever was, Mr. Washington--ten leagues between nine in the evening and ten the next morning--thirty thousand infantry, artillery, cavalry, miners, and sappers. “Villars found out what was in the wind about midnight, and at two o’clock in the morning he turned around, and the whole French army came in pursuit of us; and if you will believe it, sir, they marched better than we did, and by eleven o’clock in the morning the beggars were as near Bouchain as we, for Bouchain was what we were after. ’Twas a strong fortress, and the key to that part of France; and if we could get it we could walk to the heart of France any day we liked.