The better to conceal the real point of attack, he gave out that a march to the Moselle was to be immediately undertaken; and to give a colour to the report, the corps which had been employed in the siege of Huys was not brought forward to the front. At the same time Overkirk was detached to the Allied left towards Bourdine, and Marlborough followed with a considerable force, ostensibly to support him. So completely was Villeroi imposed upon, that he drew large reinforcements from the centre to his extreme right; and soon forty thousand men were grouped round the sources of the Little Gheet on his extreme right. By this means the centre was seriously weakened; and Marlborough instantly assembled, with every imaginable precaution to avoid discovery, all his disposable forces to attack the weakened part of the lines. The corps hitherto stationed on the Meuse was silently brought up to the front; Marlborough put himself at the head of his own English and German troops, whom he had carried with him from the Moselle; and at eight at night, on the 17th July, the whole began to march, all profoundly ignorant of the service on which they were to be engaged. Each trooper was ordered to carry a truss of hay at his saddle-bow, as if a long march was in contemplation. At the same instant on which the columns under Marlborough's orders commenced their march, Overkirk repassed the Mehaigne on the left, and, hid by darkness, fell into the general line of the advance of the Allied troops. No fascines or gabions had been brought along to pass the ditch, for fear of exciting alarm in the lines. The trusses of hay alone were trusted to for that purpose, which would be equally effectual, and less likely to awaken suspicion. At four in the morning, the heads of the columns, wholly unperceived, were in front of the French works, and, covered by a thick fog, traversed the morass, passed the Gheet despite its steep banks, carried the castle of Wange, and, rushing forward with a swift pace, crossed the ditch on the trusses of hay, and, in three weighty columns, scaled the rampart, and broke into the enemy's works. Hitherto entire success had attended this admirably planned attack; but the alarm was now given; a fresh corps of fifteen thousand men, under M. D'Allegré, hastily assembled, and a heavy fire was opened upon the Allies, now distinctly visible in the morning light, from a commanding battery. Upon this, Marlborough put himself at the head of Lumley's English horse, and, charging vigorously, succeeded, though not till he had sustained one repulse, in breaking through the line thus hastily formed. In this charge the Duke narrowly escaped with his life, in a personal conflict with a Bavarian officer. The Allies now crowded in, in great numbers, and the French, panic-struck, fled on all sides, abandoning the whole centre of their intrenchments to the bold assailants. Villeroi, who had become aware,