If the time-table had been observed, the Arch-Duke and Kinsky, over 25,000 men, should have been across the Marque before dawn, should have pushed back the French forces outside Lille, and should, long before noon, have been covering those fields between Roubaix and Lille with their advancing squadrons and battalions. There was no sign of them. If, or when, the French body near Lille were free to advance and attack the Duke of York's left flank, there was no one between to prevent their doing so. That great body of the third and fourth columns, more than half of all the men who were advancing from the Scheldt to meet Clerfayt, had failed to come up to time. That was why the Duke of York desired to push no further than Roubaix, and even to leave only an advance guard to hold that place while he withdrew the bulk of his command to Lannoy. But his decision was overruled. The Emperor and his staff, who, following up the march of this third column, were now at Templeuve, thought it imperative that Mouveaux should be held. Only thus, in their judgment, could the junction with Clerfayt (who, though late, must surely be now near at hand) be accomplished. And certainly, unless Mouveaux were held, Otto could not hold his advanced position at Tourcoing. The order was therefore sent to York to take Mouveaux. In the disastrous issue that order has naturally come in for sharp blame; but it must be remembered that much of the plan was already successfully accomplished, that Clerfayt was thought to be across the Lys, and that if the French around Courtrai, and hitherward from Courtrai to Tourcoing, were to be cut off, it was imperative to effect the junction with Clerfayt without delay. Had Clerfayt been, as he should have been at that hour in the afternoon of Saturday the 17th, between the Lys and the line Mouveaux-Tourcoing, the order given by the Austrian staff to the Duke of York would not only have been approved by the military opinion of posterity, but any other order would have been thought a proof of indecision and bad judgment. Upon receiving this order to take Mouveaux, York obeyed. The afternoon was now far advanced, very heavy work had been done, a forward march of nearly six miles had been undertaken, accompanied by continual fighting--latterly, outside Roubaix, of a heavy sort. But if Mouveaux was to be held before nightfall, an immediate attack must be made, and York ordered his men forward. Mouveaux stands upon one of those very slight crests which barely diversify the flat country in which Roubaix and Tourcoing stand. The summit of that crest is but little more than fifty feet higher than the bottom of the low, broad depression between it and the centre of Roubaix, of which swollen town it is to-day a western suburb. Slight as is the elevation, it does, as I have said, command a view towards the Lys and Wervicq; and the evenness and length of the very gentle slope upon the Roubaix side make it an excellent defensive position.