On the following day the Emperor ordered his army to devote itself to singing a _Te Deum_ and to solemn thanksgiving, which was very right and proper, but might well have been deferred for forty-eight hours until the full fruits of the victory had been gathered. For although there were four fortresses, Avesnes, Guise, Cambrai, and Maubeuge, within easy distance as a refuge for fugitives, another day’s pursuit would assuredly have swept up many hundred stragglers, while the mere sight of the Allied troops would probably have sufficed to set the French levies running once more. There was, however, better excuse than usual for inaction, for among General Chappuis’s papers had been found evidence that a most formidable stroke was about to fall, if it had not already fallen, upon Flanders. It is now necessary to narrate the course of events in that quarter, namely, on the right or western wing of the Allies. ◆April 23.◆ On the 23rd of April a force from Cambrai, acting in concert with that which was beaten on the 24th at Villers-en-Cauchies, had moved northward against Wurmb’s corps of communication at Denain, and, but for the arrival of Clerfaye with some eight thousand men from Tournai, would have driven it across the Scheldt. ◆April 24.◆ On the 24th, 26th, and 27th the harassing of the advanced posts of the Allies about Denain continued, and meanwhile the true attack was developed, pursuant to Carnot’s plans, on the extreme left of the French line. On the 24th Michaud’s division of twelve thousand men marched from Dunkirk, part of it towards Nieuport on the north, the rest upon Ypres to south-east, sweeping back the feeble posts between the two places. Simultaneously Moreau’s division of twenty-one thousand men moved eastward from Cassel upon Ypres, and drove all the outlying detachments on that side to take shelter under the ramparts. ◆April 25–27.◆ Then, leaving some of Michaud’s division at Messines to watch the fortress from the south, Moreau pursued his way eastward against Menin, and surrounded that fortress upon all sides. At the same time Souham’s division of thirty thousand men, under the personal direction of Pichegru, advanced from Lille north-eastward upon Mouscron, drove back upon Dottignies the weak detachment that defended it, and captured Courtrai, ◆April 26.◆ which was practically without a garrison. ◆April 28.◆ General Oynhausen, however, restored matters somewhat by collecting troops from Tournai at Dottignies and retaking the position of Mouscron, where reinforcements arrived in the nick of time to strengthen him.