Whilst I was walking on the ramparts at Valenciennes, an Austrian grenadier intended to make a well-turned compliment by wishing I was his wife for the sake of a fine race of grenadiers. I received a similar compliment from one of his description at Prague. Mr. Hobart laughed mightily at the _Swager’s_ gallantry. When I look at the scenes around and reflect that it is the deed of man to man, how far more cruel does he appear than the lion or the tiger. We saw smoke from Le Quesnoy; as it was invested we concluded it was a bombardment, but as the trenches are not yet opened it could not be, therefore it must have been the French employed in burning their suburbs! Prince Coburg is before it. _22nd._--Quitted Valenciennes at 3 o’clock. All the villages partake of the ruinous ravage of war. About a league is the superb _ci-devant_ Abbaye de Vicoing, which alternately belonged to the allies and the French; there are _breastworks_ and _embrasures_ in many parts round it. It serves now as a _garnison_ for Austrian hussars. Very near it are the Baths of St. Amand, near which the English were unwarily surprised and beat unmercifully from a masked battery. Every cottage that fronts the road has its walls perforated for muskets. Poor wretched people! What a condition is theirs! friend or foe must be equally to be dreaded by them. The road between St. Amand and Tournay was covered with baggage waggons and troops. In the dark, about 8 o’clock, I had an alarm that produced a sensation of terror far beyond any power of description to express. Just upon the plain where the battle of Fontenoy was fought, I saw about a quarter of a mile before me ten or twelve horsemen gallop across the road and range themselves under the trees of the avenue. They came from the French side of the road, and in the dusk and indistinct manner in which I saw them more than satisfied me that they were French hussars. I gave myself up for lost, and in an agony of silent despair hid my head. We approached, when, lo!--my hussars proved to be gleaners. The immense bulk of them on the horizon and their quiet motion, aided by imagination, made me see an enemy instead of a harmless band of suffering countrywomen. When we reached Tournay we found the inn full of English soldiers. Lord Huntley in the house very dangerously ill. [Sidenote: MOVEMENTS OF THE ALLIES]