The sight of heroism and death has a powerful effect upon men, and sometimes suspends their quarrels. The English squadron went out again to sea, and the French went back to Brest. Next year the struggle recommenced, but on land, and with nothing so striking. An English army started from Calais, and went and blockaded, on the 17th of June, 1513, the fortress of Therouanne in Artois. It was a fortnight afterwards before Henry VIII. himself quitted Calais, where festivities and tournaments had detained him too long for what he had in hand, and set out on the march with twelve thousand foot to go and join his army before Therouanne. He met on his road, near Thournehem, a body of twelve hundred French men-at-arms with their followers a-horseback, and in the midst of them Bayard. Sire de Piennes, governor of Picardy, was in command of them. “My lord,” said Bayard to him, “let us charge them: no harm can come of it to us, or very little; if, at the first charge, we make an opening in them, they are broken; if they repulse us, we shall still get away; they are on foot and we a-horseback;” and “nearly all the French were of this opinion,” continues the chronicler; but Sire de Piennes said, Gentlemen, I have orders, on my life, from the king our master, to risk nothing, but only hold his country. Do as you please; for my part I shall not consent thereto.’ Thus was this matter stayed; and the King of England passed with his band under the noses of the French.” Henry VIII. arrived quietly with his army before Therouanne, the garrison of which defended itself valiantly, though short of provisions. Louis XII. sent orders to Sire de Piennes to revictual Therouanne “at any price.” The French men-at-arms, to the number of fourteen hundred lances, at whose head marched La Palisse, Bayard, the Duke de Longueville, grandson of the great Dunois, and Sire de Piennes himself, set out on the 16th of August to go and make, from the direction of Guinegate, a sham attack upon the English camp, whilst eight hundred Albanian light cavalry were to burst, from another direction, upon the enemies’ lines, cut their way through at a gallop, penetrate to the very fosses of the fortress, and throw into them munitions of war and of the stomach, hung to their horses’ necks. The Albanians carried out their orders successfully. The French men-at-arms, after having skirmished for some time with the cavalry of Henry VIII. and Maximilian, began to fall back a little carelessly and in some disorder towards their own camp, when they perceived two large masses of infantry and artillery, English and German, preparing to cut off their retreat. Surprise led to confusion; the confusion took the form of panic; the French men-at-arms broke into a gallop, and, dispersing in all directions, thought of nothing but regaining the main body and the camp at Blangy. This sudden rout of so many gallants received the sorry name of the affair of spurs,