ack might take one of many forms. It
might try to drive him over the Lys, where Clerfayt would be ready to meet
him; or it might be a general attack upon Courtrai as a centre; or it
might be (what had, as we have seen, been actually determined) an attempt
to cut him and all his 40,000 off from the main French line.

This main French line ran through the town of Lille, and Lille not only
had its garrison, but also at Sainghin, outside the fortifications to the
south-east, a camp, under Bonnaud, of 20,000 men. If the attack from the
south or from the north, or from both, managed to cut Souham off from
Bonnaud's camp, and from the garrison at Lille, he was ruined, and his
40,000 were lost; but he hoped to be kept sufficiently informed of the
enemy's movements to fall back in time, should such an attempt be made,
and to provide for it by effecting a junction with Bonnaud before it was
delivered.

Pichegru, the Commander of the whole French army of the north, who had
ordered the advance on Courtrai, happened to be absent upon a visit to the
posts away south upon the Sambre River. Souham was therefore temporarily
in full command of all the troops which were to be concerned in the coming
battle. But the position was only a temporary one, and that must account
for the deference he paid to the advice of the four generals subordinate
to him, and for the council which he called at Menin on the critical
Saturday night which decided the issue. He himself quotes his commission
in the following terms:--"Commander-in-Chief of all the troops from the
camp at Sainghin to Courtrai inclusive."

From the beginning of the week, when a detachment of his troops had but
just recovered from a sharp action with the Duke of York's men towards
Tournai, Souham appreciated that the forces of the enemy were gradually
increasing to the south of him, and that the posts upon the Scheldt were
receiving additional enforcements of men. But neither his judgment nor the
reports that came in to him led him to believe that the mass of the
Austrian army was coming north to attack him. And in this he was right,
for, as we have seen, the Emperor did not make up his mind until Wednesday
the 14th, which was the day when orders were sent to the Arch-Duke Charles
to march northward.

Souham's attitude of mind up to, say, the Thursday may be fairly described
in some such terms as follows:--

"I know that a concentration is going on in the valley of the Scheldt to