and resigning himself, as he always did, to the inevitable, he warned MacMahon that no movement should be made on his side before the lapse of eight days. The ostentatious movement on Saarbrück was to be made on the 2nd of August. Now, at that date, the place was occupied by fractions of the 8th German Corps, posted on both banks of the river above and below the town. They consisted of four battalions of foot, several squadrons of horse, and one battery, and the nearest immediate support was some miles to the rear, near Lebach. Colonel von Pestel had held the position from the outset of the war, and was allowed to remain, at his own request, although a considerable army stood in his front at no great distance, that is, the three leading corps of the Army of the Rhine. But on the 2nd Count von Gneisenau was in command of the German outposts, and had orders, if pressed, to retire upon Lebach, but he stood fast, and even assumed the offensive, in order to ascertain exactly what the pressure might be, and test the intentions of the adversary. Against him, in the forenoon, advanced Frossard in the centre, Bazaine on the right, and De Failly, who had crossed the river at Saareguemines, on his left. It was a wonderful spectacle. The Emperor and the Prince Imperial were present on the hills to behold so vast an array moving out in parade order, to fight a sham battle with real shot and shell, against a dozen companies and six guns. It is not necessary to enter into a detail of this combat; it is sufficient to say that the Prussians held on to the left bank until they were obliged, after an hour’s fighting, to retire before the development of several brigades. Finally, when a French battery on the Reppertsberg had opened fire on the bridges and the town, Count von Gneisenau withdrew his troops, first to a place near the town, and afterwards to a position further in the rear. At other points on the river the French had failed to pass, but in the evening they sent parties into Saarbrück, then unoccupied. The French in this skirmish lost eighty-six, and the Prussians, eighty-three officers and men killed and wounded. It was the first occasion on which the soldiers of Napoleon III. had an opportunity of testing the qualities of the German Army, and they found that their secular adversaries, disciplined on a different model, and broken to new tactics, were as hardy, active, and formidable as those of Frederick the Great.