The marshal resolved to relieve Landrecies, and, having had bridges thrown over the Scheldt, he, on the 23d of July, 1712, crossed the river between Bouchain and Denain; the latter little place was defended by the Duke of Albemarle, son of General Monk, with seventeen battalions of auxiliary troops in the pay of the allies; Lieutenant General Albergotti, an experienced soldier, considered the undertaking perilous.

"Go and lie down for an hour or two, M.d'Albergotti," said Villars; "to-morrow by three in the morning you shall know whether the enemy's intrenchments are as strong as you suppose." Prince Eugene was coming up by forced marches to relieve Denain, by falling on the rearguard of the French army.

It was proposed to Villars to make fascines to fill up the fosses of Denain.
"Do you suppose," said he, pointing to the enemy's army in the distance, "that those gentry will give us the time?
Our fascines shall be the bodies of the first of our men who fall in the fosse." "There was not an instant, not a minute to lose," says the marshal in his Memoires.

"I made my infantry march on four lines in the most beautiful order; as I entered the intrenchment at the head of the troops, I had not gone twenty paces when the Duke of Albemarle and six or seven of the emperor's lieutenant generals were at my horse's feet.

I begged them to excuse me if present matters did not permit me to show them all the politeness I ought, but that the first of all was to provide for the safety of their persons." The enemy thought of nothing but flight; the bridges over the Scheldt broke down under the multitude of vehicles and horses; nearly all the defenders of Denain were taken or killed.