midday
While the French were stumbling aimlessly about the country , oscillating uncertainly between one place and another , the Prussians were making their twenty miles a day and more , gradually contracting their immense circle of beaters upon the band of men whom they held within their toils , and driving their prey onward toward the forests of the frontier . A start was finally made , and the result of the day 's movement showed that the army was pivoting on its left ; the 7th corps only traversed the two short leagues between Contreuve and Vouziers , while the 5th and 12th corps did not stir from Rethel , and the 1st went no farther than Attigny . Between Contreuve and the valley of the Aisne the country became level again and was more bare than ever ; as they drew near to Vouziers the road wound among desolate hills and naked gray fields , without a tree , without a house , as gloomy and forbidding as a desert , and the day 's march , short as it was , was accomplished with such fatigue and distress that it seemed interminably long . Soon after midday , however , the 1st and 3d divisions had passed through the city and encamped in the meadows on the farther bank of the Aisne , while a brigade of the second , which included the 106th , had remained upon the left bank , bivouacking among the waste lands of which the low foot-hills overlooked the valley , observing from their position the Monthois road , which skirts the stream and by which the enemy was expected to make his appearance . 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 ?