The French, meanwhile, continued to follow up their advantages. ◆Oct. 6.◆ Jourdan, on the east, after leaving detachments to besiege Venloo and Maastricht, had occupied Cologne on the 6th of October, and drawn up his army in face of Clerfaye’s main body, which was extended along the Rhine from Duisburg to Bonn and beyond. Moreau, who had taken over the command owing to Pichegru’s illness, also pushed forward seven thousand men in front of Grave, posted thirty thousand between Ravestein (a little to west of Grave) and Bois-le-Duc, and ten thousand men opposite the Bommeler Waert. ◆Oct. 18.◆ On the 18th he began to lay a bridge of boats over the Meuse at Alfen, and, being allowed by scandalous carelessness on the part of the Allies to complete it, passed a considerable force over the river. ◆Oct. 19.◆ On the 19th he attacked the posts at Apeltern and Druten, to east and north-east of Alfen, carried them after a very obstinate resistance from the Thirty-seventh and Rohan’s Emigrants, and succeeded in capturing the greater number of the Thirty-seventh,[282] who had mistaken a party of French Hussars for the Emigrant cavalry in the British service. At the same time intelligence came that a strong French detachment had passed the Meuse between Roermond and Venloo, and was heading for Cleve, thus threatening to turn the Duke’s left. Accordingly, in his public despatch, the Duke announced that he was about to draw the whole army to the north of the Waal; but privately he reported that he could not do so, since the Dutch, in spite of many promises, had made no effort to put Nimeguen in a state of defence. ◆Oct. 20.◆ On the 20th the French threw a permanent bridge across the Meuse a little to the north-west of Ravestein at Batenburg, and two days later began a new series of attacks upon the advanced posts, at the same time making demonstrations about St. Andries on the Bommeler Waert. ◆Oct. 27.◆ By the 27th the troops round Nimeguen had been driven into the outskirts of the town, and the Duke, who had transferred his headquarters to Arnheim, called all of them except fourteen battalions to the north bank of the Waal. The French main body then took up a position between Grave and Nimeguen, threatening to seize the two eastern keys of Holland. ◆Oct. 28.◆