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There are, however, certain positions favourable for defence. There is high ground at Change, midway between the road from Saint Calais to Le Mans, via Yvre, and the road from Grand Luce to Le Mans via Parigne.
The loftiest point of the eastern heights is at Yvre l'Eveque, which was once crowned by a renaissance chateau, where Henry of Navarre resided when he reduced Le Mans to submission. Northward from Yvre, in the direction of Savigne, stretches the high plateau of Sarge, which on the west slopes down towards the river Sarthe, and forms one of the most important of the natural defences of Le Mans.
Starting from Yvre l'Eveque towards, noon on December 4, we marched to Ardenay, where we spent the night. The weather was fine and dry, but intensely cold.
Eastward, from Yvre, you overlook first the Huisne, spanned at various neighbouring points by four bridges, but having much of the meadow-land in its valley cut up by little water-channels for purposes of irrigation these making the ground additionally difficult for an attacking force to traverse.
Nevertheless, it was in a dangerous position, having both of its flanks exposed to attack, one from Yvre and Auvours, and the other from Pontlieue and the Chemin des Boeufs, which last line was held by the 16th French Corps.
There was no regular service of trains, the only ones now running so far north being used for military purposes. I got to Le Mans a few hours before our column reached Yvre l'Eveque on the night of December 20, and at once sought a train which would convey me to Rennes, if not as far as Saint Malo. Then came another long, slow, dreary journey in a villainous wooden-seated third-class carriage.
But the Germans were too strong for Paris's men, who at last disbanded, and came, helter-skelter, towards the bridge of Yvre in terrible confusion. Flight is often contagious, and Gougeard, who had fallen back from Champagne in fairly good order, feared lest his men should imitate their comrades. He therefore pointed two field-pieces on the runaways, and by that means checked their stampede.
A house in the town is wrongly said to have been her residence, but she undoubtedly founded the Abbaye de l'Epau, near Yvre l'Eveque, and was buried there. It was at Le Mans that King John of France, who surrendered to the Black Prince at Poitiers, was born; and in the neighbouring forest, John's grandson, Charles VI, first gave signs of insanity.
Confronted by the Huisne, the heights of Yvre and the plateaux of Sarge and Auvours, having, for the most part, to keep to the high-roads for, bad as their state might be at that season, it was nothing compared with the condition of the many narrow and often deep lanes, whose high banks and hedges, moreover, offered opportunities for ambush the Germans, it was obvious, would have a difficult task before them on the eastern side of Le Mans, even should they drive the 21st Corps from Montfort.
Little had been seen of Chanzy on the two previous days, but that morning he mounted horse and rode along the lines from the elevated position known as Le Tertre Rouge to the equally elevated position of Yvre. I saw him there, wrapped in a long loose cloak, the hood of which was drawn over his kepi.
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