more brilliant successes.  Poetry sometimes reveals sentiments and processes about which history is silent.  We read in a poem of the fourteenth century, entitled The vow on the heron, “In the season when summer is verging upon its decline, and the gay birds are forgetting their sweet converse on the trees, now despoiled of their verdure, Robert seeks for consolation in the pleasures of fowling, for he cannot forget the gentle land of France, the glorious country whence he is an exile.  He carries a falcon, which goes flying over the waters till a heron falls its prey; then he calls two young damsels to take the bird to the king’s palace, singing the while in sweet discourse:  ’Fly, fly, ye honorless knights; give place to gallants on whom love smiles; here is the dish for gallants who are faithful to their mistresses.  The heron is the most timid of birds, for it fears its own shadow; it is for the heron to receive the vows of King Edward, who, though lawful King of France, dares not claim that noble heritage.’  At these words the king flushed, his heart was wroth, and he cried aloud, ’Since coward is thrown in my teeth, I make vow [on this heron] to the God of Paradise that ere a single year rolls by I will defy the King of Paris.’  Count Robert hears and smiles; and low to his own heart he says, ‘Now have I won:  and my heron will cause a great war.’”

Robert’s confidence in this tempter’s work of his was well founded, but a little premature.  Edward III. did not repel him; complained loudly of the assistance rendered by the King of France to the Scots; gave an absolute refusal to Philip’s demands for the extradition of the rebel Robert, and retorted by protesting, in his turn, against the reception accorded in France to David Bruce, the rival of his own favorite Baliol for the throne of Scotland.  In Aquitaine he claimed as of his own domain some places still occupied by Philip.  Philip, on his side, neglected no chance of causing Edward embarrassment, and more or less overtly assisting his foes.  The two kings were profoundly distrustful one of the other, foresaw, both of them, that they would one day come to blows, and prepared for it by mutually working to entangle and enfeeble one another.  But neither durst as yet proclaim his wishes or his fears, and take the initiative in those unknown events which war must bring about to the great peril of their people and perhaps of themselves.  From 1334 to 1337, as they continued to advance towards the issue, foreseen and at the same time deferred, of this situation, they were both of them seeking allies in Europe for their approaching struggle.  Philip had a notable one under his thumb, the pope at that time settled at Avignon; and he made use of him for the purpose of proposing a new crusade, in which Edward III. should be called upon to join with him.  If Edward complied, any enterprise on his part against France would become impossible; and if he declined, Christendom would