The two Corps, forming the left wing of the German Army, had been guided far more by the reports brought in by daring cavalry scouts, than by the orders received either from Prince Frederick Charles or Von Moltke, because these latter were necessarily less well-informed than the Corps commanders who were the first to receive the information. Yet the latter, of course, while taking their own line conformed to the governing idea, which was that the French right flank, wherever it was, should be turned. Moving eastward from Jarny, with the 12th Corps the Crown Prince of Saxony learned before two o’clock, that Roncourt was the extreme northern limit of Canrobert’s Corps, and he, therefore, varied a head-quarter’s order to march upon St. Marie, by directing one division, the 23rd, under Prince George, to march down the right bank of the Orne, through Auboué, and turn to the right upon Roncourt. One brigade of the 24th Division he directed on St. Marie, keeping the other back as a support. About the same time the whole of the Guard, except one brigade detached to back up the 9th Corps, had formed up near Habonville, and their batteries, as we have seen, had taken up a position which enabled them to smite St. Privat. When, therefore, General Pape had moved up the Guards by the ravine west of St. Marie he found the Saxons ready to co-operate with him in driving out the French battalions occupying the pretty village which has the air of a small rural town. It sits at the foot of the long bare incline leading down from St. Privat, traversed by a straight road bordered, as usual, by tall scraggy trees; and nestling amid gardens and walled inclosures shines out a cheerful white spot in the diversified landscape. From this point, St. Privat looms dark and large on the hill-top, larger and darker looking than it really is. To the southward of that village, beyond a dip, down and up which the cottages creep, stands the farmstead of Jerusalem, and further south the ground rolls away towards Amanvillers. More than a mile of open country separates St. Privat from St. Marie, affording no lurking places to either side, except such as can be found in the gentle swelling and falling of the fields; indeed, to the casual observer the smoothness of the surface seems broken only by the poplars on the highway. West of St. Marie there is a shallow ravine, and beyond it copses, and south, as we know towards Vernéville, more copses, ruddy brown farmsteads, and white villages. At this moment the battle-smoke puffed out, curled, rose in fantastic clouds, or rolled along the ground, upon the hill-sides and above the thickets and barns; about St. Marie, however, the air as yet was untainted by the sulphurous mists of combat so rank a mile away, but the garrison stood painfully expectant of the coming fray. For though the Guards were hidden the Saxon brigade to the north-west was visible, and the skirmishers driven from St. Ail, told how the “Prussians” were