Beaulieu, being attacked by Houchard before Courtrai, waited only for a reinforcement which the Duke had hurried forward to him, when, taking the offensive, he utterly routed the French, who fled in the wildest confusion, and, pursuing them to Menin, recaptured the town. ◆Sept. 16.◆ The Duke entered Menin on the following day, where he received letters from Coburg who was already at Cysoing, not more than eighteen miles to the south, reporting that since the fall of Quesnoy he had gained a brilliant victory over one of Houchard’s divisions at Avesnes-le-Sec. ◆Sept. 12.◆ This action, which, though almost unknown to Englishmen, still remains one of the greatest achievements in the history of cavalry, was not only most glorious to the Austrians in itself, but was important as showing that the new tactics of the undisciplined French army were inapplicable to any but a strongly enclosed country. Nine Austrian squadrons, counting some two thousand men, without a single gun, had utterly dispersed seven thousand French, chiefly infantry, cut down two thousand of them, captured two thousand more, and taken twenty guns, all with a loss to themselves of sixty-nine men. These successes effectually checked the advance of the French. Houchard, after the defeat at Menin, had already given the order to retreat; and the French retired to their former positions before Cassel, Lille, and Maubeuge. Then arose the question what should be done next. The season was advancing, but events had marched rapidly in Paris since the revolt of Toulon. Following hard upon the news of Houchard’s reverse came tidings that the Duke of Brunswick had defeated the French with a loss of four thousand men at Pirmasens, on the northern frontier of Alsace; and this succession of disasters stirred the Jacobins to the ferocity of panic. ◆Sept. 17.◆ On the 17th two savage laws were passed, which practically placed all lives and all property at the arbitrary disposal of the reigning faction; and then the demagogues turned with fury upon the generals. Loudest among them was Robespierre, who, profoundly jealous of any man who could do what he could not, was suspicious above all of soldiers. ◆Sept. 21.◆ Thanks to his denunciations, Houchard and his staff were recalled under accusation of treason; and thereby another blow was added to the many already struck at the army. The troops were greatly demoralised by the continual change of commanders,[172] whom the Commissioners of the Convention promoted or deposed at their arbitrary pleasure; and the commanders themselves were not less demoralised by the certain prospect of death if they failed to achieve the impossible with troops that were neither fed, nor clothed, nor paid, nor disciplined. The Allies, therefore, could still reasonably look for success from a concentration of their whole army and a vigorous offensive.