The French Generals, as already narrated, made no effort to follow up their victory of the 18th, but awaited the return of Pichegru, who, on the news of the victory, hastened from the Sambre to turn it to account. On the 22nd, after a consultation with his officers, Pichegru decided to make a general attack upon Coburg’s position, and directed that Souham with four brigades,[244] numbering from thirty to forty thousand men, should assail it on the right or northern half of its front from Espierres to Leers, while Bonnaud’s division should fall upon its left about Templeuve, and Osten’s division should make a demonstration still further to the south about Baisieux. May 23.◆ On the following day between six and seven o’clock in the morning the action began; and after long and hard fighting the Allies were finally driven from three important points, namely, Blandain and the hill of La Croisette immediately adjacent to it, a little to the west of Tournai, and Pont-à-Chin upon the Scheldt, a little below the city. To abandon to the enemy these posts, particularly Pont-à-Chin, which lay on the direct road from Courtrai to Tournai and commanded the navigation of the Scheldt, was impossible; and Coburg decided that they must be recovered at any cost. Throughout this long day’s fighting the troops that had borne the brunt of the work on the 18th had been held in reserve; but at about six o’clock in the evening Fox’s brigade of the British Line was called out to recover Pont-à-Chin which had already been taken and retaken three or four times. The brigade went into this action with fewer than six hundred men, having lost half of its numbers just four days before; but the three gallant regiments, though unsupported, carried the village unhesitatingly with the bayonet, pressed on to the low heights to south of it, swept everything before them, so far as their front extended, and captured seven cannon. ◆ May 22.◆ The day ended, after a severe struggle of fifteen hours, in the retreat of the French, with the loss of some six thousand men and seven guns; the fire, both of musketry and artillery, having been the heaviest ever remembered by the oldest soldiers present. Both sides, however, fought for the most part in dispersed formation, and inflicted, comparatively speaking, little damage upon each other. The one exception was Fox’s brigade. “Had their order of attack,” wrote Calvert, “been adopted by the Allies in general, the day would probably have ended in the ruin of the French.” But the losses of the brigade amounted to one hundred and twenty killed, wounded, and missing; and there are few troops that can be trusted, after losing half their numbers on Sunday, to storm a position held by a superior force and lose one-fifth of their remnant on Thursday. Some indeed claim that but for this handful of British soldiers the day would have been lost to the Allies;[245] but whether this be true or not, the 22nd of May