their lives in so miserable an affair as single combat, whereby one gained the name of fool rather than honorable renown.  ’I will tell you what we will do, if it please you.  You shall take twenty or thirty of your comrades, as I will take as many of ours.  We will go out into a goodly field where none can hinder or vex us, and there will we do so much that men shall speak thereof in time to come in hall, and palace, and highway, and other places of the world.’  ‘By my faith,’ said Beaumanoir, ’tis bravely said, and I agree:  be ye thirty, and we will be thirty, too.’  And thus the matter was settled.  When the day had come, the thirty comrades of Brandebourg, whom we shall call English, heard mass, then got on their arms, went off to the place where the battle was to be, dismounted, and waited a long while for the others, whom we shall call French.  When the thirty French had come, and they were in front one of another, they parleyed a little together, all the sixty; then they fell back, and made all their fellows go far away from the place.  Then one of them made a sign, and forthwith they set on and fought stoutly all in a heap, and they aided one another handsomely when they saw their comrades in evil case.  Pretty soon after they had come together, one of the French was slain, but the rest did not slacken the fight one whit, and they bore themselves as valiantly all as if they had all been Rolands and Olivers.  At last they were forced to stop, and they rested by common accord, giving themselves truce until they should be rested, and the first to get up again should recall the others.  They rested long, and there were some who drank wine which was brought to them in bottles.  They rebuckled their armor, which had got undone, and dressed their wounds.  Four French and two English were dead already.”

It was no doubt during this interval that the captain of the Bretons, Robert de Beaumanoir, grievously wounded and dying of fatigue and thirst, cried out for a drink.  “Drink thy blood, Beaumanoir,” said one of his comrades, Geoffrey de Bois, according to some accounts, and Sire de Tinteniac, according to others.  From that day those words became the war-cry of the Beaumanoirs.  Froissart says nothing of this incident.  Let us return to his narrative.

“When they were refreshed, the first to get up again made a sign, and recalled the others.  Then the battle recommenced as stoutly as before, and lasted a long while.  They had short swords of Bordeaux, tough and sharp, and boar-spears and daggers, and some had axes, and therewith they dealt one another marvellously great dings, and some seized one another by the arms a-struggling, and they struck one another, and spared not.  At last the English had the worst of it; Brandebourg, their captain, was slain, with eight of his comrades, and the rest yielded themselves prisoners when they saw that they could no longer defend themselves, for they could not and must not fly.  Sir Robert de Beaumanoir and his