Now that the winter was advancing, it was the cavalry maneuvers that seemed to worry him, for everyone knew (the cavalrymen themselves made no secret of it) that in case of a German attack the cavalry was to deploy its units far ahead of the lines in Belgium. But when he tried to decipher the extremely fragmentary orders that reached Les Falizes, Grange was astonished by the perspective that appeared: obviously the cavalry’s advance ahead of the lines mattered less than its manner of retreat behind them.

Julien Gracq, Balcony in the Forest, loc. 227