in charge.’  The knight returned with this answer to his chiefs; and it encouraged them greatly, and they repented within themselves for that they had sent him to the king.”  Warlike ardor, if not ability and prudence, was the same on both sides.  Philip’s faithful ally, John of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia, had come thither, blind as he was, with his son Charles and his knights; and when he knew that the battle had begun he asked those who were near him how it was going on.  “‘My lord,’ they said, ’the Genoese are discomfited, and the king has given orders to slay them all; and all the while between our folk and them there is so great disorder that they stumble one over another and hinder us greatly.’  ‘Ha!’ said the king, ’that is an ill sign for us; where is Sir Charles, my son?’ ’My lord, we know not; we have reason to believe that he is elsewhere in the fight.’  ‘Sirs,’ replied the old king, ’ye are my liegemen, my friends, and my comrades; I pray you and require you to lead me so far to the front in the work of this day that I may strike a blow with my sword; it shall not be said that I came hither to do nought.’  So his train, who loved his honor and their own advancement,” says Froissart, “did his bidding.  For to acquit themselves of their duty, and that they might not lose him in the throng, they tied themselves all together by the reins of their horses, and set the king, their lord, right in front, that he might the better accomplish his desire, and thus they bore down on the enemy.  And the king went so far forward that he struck a good blow, yea, three and four; and so did all those who were with him.  And they served him so well and charged so well forward upon the English, that all fell there and were found next day on the spot around their lord, and their horses tied together.”

“The King of France,” continues Froissart, “had great anguish at heart when he saw his men thus discomfited and falling one after another before a handful of folk as the English were.  He asked counsel of Sir John of Hainault, who was near him and who said to him, ’Truly, sir, I can give you no better counsel than that you should withdraw and place yourself in safety, for I see no remedy here.  It will soon be late; and then you would be as likely to ride upon your enemies as amongst your friends, and so be lost.’  Late in the evening, at nightfall, King Philip left the field with a heavy heart—­and for good cause; he had just five barons with him, and no more!  He rode, quite broken-hearted, to the castle of Broye.  When he came to the gate, he found it shut and the bridge drawn up, for it was fully night, and was very dark and thick.  The king had the castellan summoned, who came forward on the battlements and cried aloud, ‘Who’s there? who knocks at such an hour?’ ‘Open, castellan,’ said Philip; ‘it is the unhappy King of France.’  The castellan went out as soon as he recognized the voice of the King of France; and he well knew already that they