Army on the Aisne must have been discovered, and the report handed in at head-quarters on the morning, or at latest the afternoon, of the 25th. That would have been done had General von Schlotheim, the chief of the staff with the Meuse Army, been as careful to reconnoitre the country on his right as Von Blumenthal was to send out horsemen to the flank as well as the front of the westward moving host. It was not done, and the error of judgment involved the loss of four-and-twenty hours. The error was promptly and amply repaired. While each corps in the mighty Army, having wheeled to the right, was tramping north in the driving rain through the muddy forest roads to gain the distant bivouacs assigned them, the cavalry divisions had come up with, watched, touched, astonished, and bewildered the French, making the 26th of August a memorable day in their camps. Near the Meuse the ubiquitous patrols discovered troops at Buzancy; upon the central road which runs beside the Aire, the foremost squadron saw infantry and cavalry in Grand Pré; upon the Aisne, two adventurous parties pressing up close to the flank and rear of Vouziers, were able to observe and report the presence of large bodies of all arms encamped to the east of the town, and to specify the positions which they held. No attempt was made to attack, and there was no firing except a sputter of carbine-shots discharged by a French at a German patrol which had approached the left bank of the Aire near Grand Pré. The whole line of horsemen, from the Meuse to the Aisne, was in constant communication, and their scouting parties, eager to see and not be seen, found their designs favoured by the abounding woods and the undulations of the land. Thus, in one day, a thick fringe of lynx-eyed cavalry was thrust in close proximity to the adversary many miles in front of the German Corps, plodding their arduous way along the plashy tracks and by-ways of the Argonne. _Movements of the French._