the 6th Corps at Vassy on the Blaise, and the First Bavarians at Bar le Duc, whither the King had come on the 24th, by way of Commercy, from Pont à Mousson. Thus the whole force was marching direct on Chalons, left in front; that is, the Third Army, as a rule, was a march in advance of the Saxon Crown Prince. _The Cavalry Operations._ During the period occupied in reaching these towns and villages the cavalry had been actively employed scouting far in advance and on the flanks; and what they did forms the most interesting and instructive portion of the story. As early as the 17th a troop of Hussars captured a French courrier at Commercy, and from his despatches learned that the Cavalry of Canrobert’s Corps had been left behind at Chalons, that Paris was being placed in a state of defence, that all men between 25 and 35 had been called under arms, and that a 12th and 13th Corps were to be formed. Another patrol was able to ascertain that at least part of De Failly’s troops had retreated by Charmes, and that other hostile bodies had gone by Vaudemont and Neufchateau; they were hurrying to the railway station at the latter place and at Chaumont. At Ménil sur Saulx, on the 18th, the indefatigable horsemen seized many letters, and a telegram from M. Chevreau, Minister of the Interior, stating that the Emperor had reached Chalons on the 17th—he really arrived there on the evening of the 16th, having driven from Gravelotte in the morning—and that “considerable forces” were being collected in the famous camp on the dusty and windy plains of Champagne. Thus, day after day, the mounted parties preceded the infantry, spreading far and wide on all sides, so that as early as the 19th some Hussars actually rode within sight of French infantry retreating from St. Dizier, and on the 21st captured men belonging to the 5th Corps near Vitry. The next day the 2nd Cavalry Division rode out from four-and-twenty to six-and-thirty miles, entering, among other places, Chaumont, where, from the station books, they learned that De Failly’s infantry had gone on, three days only before, in twenty trains, while Brahaut’s Cavalry followed the road. On the 23rd the 4th Division of Cavalry had passed St. Dizier and ridden into the villages to the east of Chalons itself. Thence Dragoons were sent forward and these picked up information to the effect that the French Army had quitted the great camp. Reports to this effect had already reached head-quarters, and had moved Von Moltke to tell General von Blumenthal, the Crown Prince’s chief of the staff, that it would be most desirable to have prompt information showing whither the enemy had gone. The 4th Cavalry Division, which, on the 24th, was at Chalons camp, now abandoned, burnt, and desolate, pushed a party towards Reims, and there found that the French Army had departed in an easterly direction. Before this vital information arrived at the