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Duval was also on the 7th to march with seven thousand men to the Chene-Populeux; and Kellermann was advancing from Metz, on his right, with a reinforcement of twenty-two thousand men. Time, therefore, was all that was necessary. The duke of Brunswick, after taking Verdun, passed the Meuse in three columns. General Clairfait was operating on his right, and prince Hohenlohe on his left.
It brought all his childhood back to him, and Maurice was again a boy, scarcely out of his mother's arms, down there in distant Chene-Populeux, listening to the stories of his grandfather, a veteran of the Grand Army.
This forest had four issues; that of the Chene-Populeux on the left; those of the Croix-au-Bois and of Grandpre in the centre, and that of Les Islettes on the right, which opened or closed the passage into France. The Prussians were only six leagues from the forest, and Dumouriez had twelve to pass over, and his design of occupying it to conceal, if he hoped for success.
He executed his project skilfully and boldly. General Dillon, advancing on the Islettes, took possession of them with seven thousand men; he himself reached Grandpre, and there established a camp of thirteen thousand men. The Croix-au-Bois, and the Chene-Populeux were in like manner occupied and defended by some troops.
The young man was grandson to a hero of the Grand Army, and had first seen the light at Chene-Populeux, where his father, not caring to tread the path of glory, had held an ill-paid position as collector of taxes.
And Maurice was dumfoundered to behold advancing along that Monthois road Margueritte's entire division, the body of cavalry to which had been assigned the duty of supporting the 7th corps and watching the left flank of the army. The report was that it was on its way to Chene-Populeux. Why was the left wing, where alone they were threatened by the enemy, stripped in that manner?
His conduct had brought his father to the grave; his sister, when he had stripped her of her little all, had been so fortunate as to find a husband in that excellent young fellow Weiss, who had long held the position of accountant in the great sugar refinery at Chene-Populeux, and was now foreman for M. Delaherche, one of the chief cloth manufacturers of Sedan.
Renouncing all hope of driving Dumouriez from his position by attacking him in front, he tried to turn him. Dumouriez had been so imprudent as to place nearly his whole force at Grandpre and the Islettes, and to put only a small corps at Chene-Populeux and Coix-au- Bois posts, it is true, of minor importance.
To add to their distress a misconception of orders had caused the supplies of the commissary department to be directed on Chene-Populeux.
She was thinking of the days of their girlhood, and how Gilberte's father, Captain de Vineuil, an old naval officer who had been made collector of customs at Charleville when his wounds had incapacitated him for active service, hearing his daughter cough and fearing for her the fate of his young wife, who had been snatched from his arms by that terrible disease, consumption, had sent her to live at a farm-house near Chene-Populeux.