regularly established one for an English line: its merits were obvious, and well tested. The differences between Crecy and Agincourt were only that in the latter case the front was in three divisions instead of two, and the archers were protected by an improvised palisade, besides being separated by shorter lines of spearmen. These differences would obviously all tend to make them more destructive. The numbers of the French army are told so variously that it is impossible to state them with any confidence. They are usually given by comparison with the English, and the proportion varies from six times as great down to three times. Henry had perhaps about 10,000 in all, as has been stated above; he may well have had less, but cannot have had more.[35] The French were drawn up in three divisions, one behind the other, each having a continuous line of dismounted men-at-arms. One contemporary, who says that the English were four deep, says that the French were thirty deep, which may possibly have been true of the men-at-arms, who formed a much larger proportion of the French army than of the English. The front line, at any rate, cannot have had more than 600 in front at the outside, for a small body of horsemen was placed on each flank to charge the English archers, and the whole space available was but half-a-mile, though it is true that they were much crowded together. There were archers, or at any rate cross-bowmen, in the French army: how they were posted does not appear, except that they were never given a chance of being useful. The knights, we are told, refused to let them have the post of honour in front, behaving thus with the usual feudal vaingloriousness, which had cost the French so dear at Crecy. Similarly we are told that the French had cannon, but certainly no use was made of them, perhaps for the same reason.