Both the villages at the extremity of their line had been strengthened, not only with intrenchments hastily thrown up around them, thickly mounted with heavy cannon, but with barricades at all their principal entrances, formed of overturned carts and all the furniture of the houses, which they had seized upon, as the insurgents did at Paris in 1830, for that purpose. The army stood upon a hill or gentle eminence, the guns from which commanded the whole plain by which alone it could be approached; and this plain was low, and intersected on the right, in front of Blenheim, by a rivulet which flows down by a gentle descent to the Danube, and in front of Oberglau by another rivulet, which runs in two branches till within a few paces of the Danube; into which it also empties itself. These rivulets had bridges over them at the points where they flowed through villages; but they were difficult of passage in the other places for cavalry and artillery, and, with the ditches cut in the swampy meadows through which they flowed, proved no small impediment to the advance of the Allied army. The Duke of Marlborough, before the action began, in person visited each important battery, in order to ascertain the range of the guns. The troops under his command were drawn up in four lines; the infantry being in front, and the cavalry behind, in each line. This arrangement was adopted in order that the infantry, which would get easiest through the streams, might form on the other side, and cover the formation of the cavalry, who might be more impeded. The fire of cannon soon became very animated on both sides, and the infantry advanced to the edge of the rivulets with that cheerful air and confident step which is so often the forerunner of success. On Prince Eugene's side the impediments, however, proved serious; the beds of the rivulets were so broad, that they required to be filled up with fascines before they could be passed by the guns; and when they did get across, they replied without much effect to the French cannon thundering from the heights, which commanded the whole field. At half-past twelve, however, these difficulties were, by great efforts on the part of Prince Eugene and his wing, overcome, and he sent word to Marlborough that he was ready. The English general instantly called for his horse; the troops every where stood to their arms, and the signal was given to advance. The rivulets and marshy ground in front of Blenheim and Unterglau were passed by the first line without much difficulty, though under a heavy fire of artillery from the French batteries; and the firm ground on the slope being reached, the first line advanced in the finest order to the attack--the cavalry in front having now defiled to a side, so as to let the English infantry take the lead. The attack must be given in the words of Dr Hare's Journal.