"Six thousand English veterans in stately column tread; Their cannon blaze in front and flank, Lord Hay is at their head. Steady they step a-down the slope, steady they climb the hill, Steady they load, steady they fire, moving right onward still, Betwixt the wood and Fontenoy, as through a furnace blast, Through rampart, trench and palisade, and bullets showering fast; And on the open plain above they rose and kept their course, With ready fire and grim resolve that mocked at hostile force; Past Fontenoy, past Fontenoy, while thinner grew their ranks, They broke, as broke the Zuyder Zee through Holland's ocean banks. * * * * * "'Push on my household cavalry!' King Louis madly cried. To death they rush, but rude their shock; not unavenged they died. On through the camp the column trod--King Louis turns his rein. 'Not yet, my liege,' Saxe interposed; 'the Irish troops remain.' 'Lord Claire,' he said, 'you have your wish; there are your Saxon foes!' The Marshal almost smiles to see, so furiously he goes, How fierce the looks these exiles wear, who're wont to be so gay! The treasured wrongs of fifty years are in their hearts to-day. On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, nor ever yet elsewhere, Rushed on to fight a nobler band than these proud exiles were. * * * * * "Like lions leaping at a fold, when mad with hunger's pang, Right up against the English line the Irish exiles sprang; Bright was their steel, 'tis bloody now, their guns are filled with gore; Through shattered ranks and severed files and trampled flags they tore. The English strove with desperate strength; paused, rallied, staggered, fled; The green hillside is matted close with dying and with dead. Across the plain and far away passed on that hideous wrack While cavalier and Fantassin rush in upon their track. On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, like eagles in the sun, With bloody plumes the Irish stand--the field is fought and won!" On our first day's visit the Professor devoted most of the time to the cathedral and the remains that still exist of the earliest period of Tournai's long and varied history. As we approached the city, past the vast excavations around Antoing connected with the lime pits and kilns and cement works that there abound, we could see the five spires of the cathedral in the distance. Antoing is only a mile and a half from Fontenoy, and the battlefield--marked by a monument erected in 1907--is happily free from the pits that scar so much of the countryside thereabouts, and no doubt looks to-day very much as it did on the day of the great fight.