The first attempt of the French to break out eastward to Carignan proved a failure, and their retreat westward to Mezieres was also already cut off, for the Vth and XIth Corps of the IIIrd Army, together with the Wuertemberg Division, had been detailed to move northward to the road leading to that place. These troops had started early in the night, and at six a.m. had crossed the Meuse at Donchery, and by the three pontoon bridges further down the river. The advanced patrols found the Mezieres road quite clear of the enemy, and the heavy cannonade heard from the direction of Bazeilles made it appear probable that the French had accepted battle in their position at Sedan. The Crown Prince, therefore, ordered the two Corps, which already had reached the upland of Vrigne, to swing to their right and advance on St. Menges; the Wuertembergers were to remain behind to watch Mezieres. General von Kirchbach then indicated Fleigneux to his advanced guard as the objective of the further movement, which had for its purpose the barring of the escape of the French into Belgium, and the establishment of a junction with the right wing of the Army of the Meuse. The narrow pass about 2000 paces long between the heights and the river traversed by the road to St. Albert, was neither held nor watched by the French. It was not till the advanced guard reached St. Menges that it encountered a French detachment, which soon withdrew. The German advance then deployed against Illy. Two companies moved to the right and took possession of Floing, where they maintained themselves for the next two hours without assistance against repeated attacks. The earliest arriving Prussian batteries had to exert themselves to the utmost to maintain themselves against the much superior strength of French artillery in action about Illy. At first they had for their only escort some cavalry and a few companies of infantry, and as these bodies debouched from the defile of St. Albert, they found themselves an enticing object of attack to Margueritte's Cavalry Division halted on the aforesaid plateau of Illy. It was at nine o'clock that General Galliffet rode down to the attack at the head of three regiments of Chasseurs d'Afrique and two squadrons of Lancers formed in three lines. The first fury of the charge fell upon two companies of the 87th Regiment, which met it with a hail of bullets at sixty yards range. The first line charged some horse-lengths further forward, then wheeled outward to both flanks, and came under the fire of the supporting troops occupying the broom copses. The Prussian batteries, too, showered their shell fire into the throng of French horsemen, who finally went about in confusion, and, having suffered great losses, sought refuge in the Bois de Garenne.