At the bridge, a few miles away, the other sections met, and belabored each other as vigorously as did those at the pass.  The Bourg d’Espaign performed wonders:  “he wielded a battle-axe, and never hit a man with it but he struck him to the ground.  He took with his own hand the two captains, Cornillac and Perot Palatin de Bearn.  A squire of Navarre was there slain, called Ferdinand de Miranda, an expert man-at-arms.  Some who were present say the Bourg d’Espaign killed him; others, that he was stifled through the heat of his armor.

“In short, the pillage was rescued and all who conducted it slain or made prisoners; for not three escaped, excepting varlets, who ran away and crossed the river by swimming.  Thus ended this business, and the garrison of Lourde never had such a loss as it suffered that day.  The prisoners were courteously ransomed or mutually exchanged; for those who had been engaged in this combat had made several prisoners on each side, so that it behooved them to treat each other handsomely.”

* * * * *

“Such,” laughs Johnson, “was a fight of men-at-arms in the Middle Ages,—­derived from the graphic description of Froissart, in whose narrative there always runs an undercurrent of sly humor when portraying the military extravagances of the age.  And it is impossible to avoid the contagion; for who can picture in any more serious style a hurly-burly of huge, iron-clad, suffocating, perspiring warriors, half blinded with helmet and visor and scarce able to stir beneath the metallic pots encompassing them around; belaboring and hustling each other about with weapons quite unequal to reach the flesh and blood within, till, out of breath and blown with fatigue, they sate down as coolly as they could and refreshed themselves; then getting up again, again drove all the breath out of their bodies,—­and all without doing the least mortal harm, unless somebody died of the heat or was smothered to death in his own armorial devices.”

IV.

This Le Mengeant, the worthy killed in his armor, as above recorded, at the Pass of Marteras, had been the hero of more than one bedeviling exploit during his career thus untimely cut off.  One I cannot forbear giving, told in these Chronicles and retold with charming gusto by the writer above mentioned.  Le Mangeant, it would seem, had evidently “a strong notion of the humorous in his composition.  One time, he set out, accompanied by four others, all with shaven crowns and otherwise disguised as an abbot and attendants going from upper Gascony to Paris on business.  Having reached the Sign of the Angel at Montpelier, a suitable hostelry for such holy men, they soon gained much credit for their saintly deportment and conversation; insomuch that a rich man of the city, Sir Beranger, was fain to avail himself of their company and ghostly comfort by the way.  We say nothing of the generosity which prompted the