The event, however, in no way disturbed the plans of Pichegru. ◆June 4.◆ On the 4th of June Clerfaye contrived to pass two battalions into Ypres to strengthen the garrison; but he declared himself unable, with the fifteen thousand men that remained to him, to relieve the place unless he were reinforced. By express command of the Emperor, who had lingered at Brussels on his homeward journey, Coburg sent him some ten thousand men in two detachments, reckoning that, after the recent victory on the Sambre, he could safely draw a few troops from that quarter. Clerfaye, however, continued to display the sluggishness which had characterised his conduct from the beginning of the campaign. ◆June 6.◆ On the 6th, before his reinforcements had reached him, he made a feeble advance against Souham in four columns, and was of course unsuccessful; ◆June 10.◆ and on the 10th, when his force had been raised to over twenty thousand men, he was assailed and defeated with loss by Souham before he could make up his mind to act. On that same day Coburg had designed to make a diversion in Clerfaye’s favour, by an attack on Mouscron, upon a plan calculated so exactly to expose the Duke of York’s column to destruction, as on the 18th of May, that the Duke refused to accept it until it was altered. This, however, was of small importance, for the French, having perfect information of the intended movements, appeared in every direction in such force that the enterprise was abandoned. The state of things at the Austrian headquarters was indeed almost beyond belief. Insensible to all ideas of duty and discipline, the young staff-officers, described by Craig as “in general the most contemptible of puppies,” had talked openly of the projected movement in the coffee-houses at noon, though the Duke of York received no information of it until ten hours later, nor any orders until four o’clock on the next morning. “Mack used to keep these gentry in order,” wrote Craig, “and, had he been here, the prison would have been full of them next day; but indeed it would never have happened.” ◆June 12.◆ Meanwhile Clerfaye remained so incurably supine that the Duke of York more than once entreated Coburg to entrust the relief of Ypres to himself, but in vain. ◆June 13.◆ Roused by repeated orders to attack, Clerfaye at last moved against Souham in five columns, gained some advantage at first, captured ten guns, and then as usual sat still until Souham had gathered troops sufficient for a counter attack, when he immediately retired to his old position at Thielt.