At this moment General Douay arrived, and gave a new turn to his thoughts. Douay had surveyed the position in front of his camp with an anxious eye, and had noted that, unless reinforced, he could not hold the cardinal point—the Calvaire d’Illy. He got additional troops in the end. “But,” said the Marshal, who seemed to share Douay’s apprehensions, “I do not want to shut myself up in lines; I wish to be free to manœuvre.” “M. le Maréchal, to-morrow the enemy will not leave you the time,” was the General’s answer. According to Captain des Sesmaisons, it was Douay’s comments on the position which made the Marshal modify his judgment, and think of fighting where he stood rather than of retreating on Mézières. The Captain rode back to his General, and carried with him a gloomy account of the condition and outlook of the Army of Chalons. No troops were sent forth to watch the Meuse below Sedan and communicate with Vinoy. Later in the day, an old soldier who lived in the neighbourhood, sought out General Douay and told him that the enemy was preparing to pass the Meuse at Donchery—a fact, it might be thought, which could not escape the notice of the watchers in Sedan—and then it was that the General occupied the position between Floing and Illy, and began to throw up intrenchments as cover for men and guns. He had not done so hitherto, because his soldiers, thoroughly exhausted by incessant marches, sleepless nights, want of food, and rear-guard combats, needed some rest. Enough has been said to indicate the lamentable weakness of mind at head-quarters, and the dire confusion prevailing throughout the limited area between the Belgian frontier and the Meuse, within which the French soldiers were now potentially inclosed. It is time to show a different example of the practice of war. _The Movements of the Germans._