“being impatient and inflamed by the words of Bishop Guerin, let out their horses at the full speed of their legs, and attacked the enemy.  But the Flemish knights prick not forward to the encounter, indignant that the first charge against them was not made by knights, as would have been seemly, and remain motionless at their post.  The men of Soissons, meanwhile, see no need of dealing softly with them and humoring them, so thrust them roughly, upset them from their horses, slay a many of them, and force them to leave their place or defend themselves, willy nilly.  At last, the Chevalier Eustace, scorning the burghers and proud of his illustrious ancestors, moves out into the middle of the plain, and with haughty voice, roars, “Death to the French!” The battle soon became general and obstinate; it was a multitude of hand-to-hand fights in the midst of a confused melley.  In this melley, the knights of the Emperor Otho did not forget the instructions he had given them before the engagement:  they sought out the King of France himself, to aim their blows at him; and ere long they knew him by the presence of the royal standard, and made their way almost up to him.  The communes, and chiefly those of Corbeil, Amiens, Beauvais, Compiegne, and Arras, thereupon pierced through the battalions of the knights and placed themselves in front of the king, when some German infantry crept up round Philip, and with hooks and light lances threw him down from his horse; but a small body of knights who had remained by him overthrew, dispersed, and slew these infantry, and the king, recovering himself more quickly than had been expected, leaped upon another horse, and dashed again into the melley.  Then danger threatened the Emperor Otho in his turn.  The French drove back those about him, and came right up to him; a sword thrust, delivered with vigor, entered the brain of Otho’s horse; the horse, mortally wounded, reared up and turned his head in the direction whence he had come; and the emperor, thus carried away, showed his back to the French, and was off in full flight.  “Ye will see his face no more to-day,” said Philip to his followers:  and he said truly.  In vain did William des Barres, the first knight of his day in strength, and valor, and renown, dash off in pursuit of the emperor; twice he was on the point of seizing him, but Otho escaped, thanks to the swiftness of his horse and the great number of his German knights, who, whilst their emperor was flying, were fighting to a miracle.  But their bravery saved only their master; the battle of Bouvines was lost for the Anglo-Germano-Flemish coalition.  It was still prolonged for several hours; but in the evening it was over, and the prisoners of note were conducted to Philip Augustus.  There were five counts, Ferrand of Flanders, Renaud of Boulogne, William of Salisbury, a natural brother of King John, Otho of Tecklemburg, and Conrad of Dartmund; and twenty-five barons “bearing their own standard to battle.”  Philip Augustus spared all their lives; sent away the Earl of Salisbury to his brother, confined the Count of Boulogne at Peronne, where he was subjected “to very rigorous imprisonment, with chains so short that he could scarce move one step,” and as for the Count of Flanders, his sometime regent, Philip dragged him in chains in his train,