[476] Will. Poitiers, as above. Will. Jumièges, l. vii. c. 18 (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 276). Wace, _Roman de Rou_, vv. 9430–9635 (Pluquet, vol. ii. pp. 49–58). So began the most momentous feud ever waged by the counts of Anjou. After the first burst of the storm came a lull of nearly seven years, one of which was marked, as we have seen, by Geoffrey’s final acquisition of Le Mans; but his power had sustained a shock from which it never wholly recovered. In the struggles with Normandy which fill the latter years of Henry I. of France, the king and the count of Anjou play an almost equally ignoble part. Henry, who had once courted the friendship of William to ward off the blows of the Angevin Hammer, no sooner perceived which was really the mightier of the two princes than he completely reversed his policy, gave an almost open support to the treasons in William’s duchy, and at length, in 1054, when these indirect attacks had failed, summoned all the princes of his realm to join him in a great expedition for the ruin of the duke of Normandy. They flocked to the muster at Mantes from all quarters save one; strangely enough, the count of Anjou was missing.[477] Only a few months ago the terror which clung around Martel’s name and the number of troops at his command had sufficed to make his stepson William of Aquitaine disband an army with which he was preparing to encounter him, and sue for peace at his mere approach;[478] yet it seems that not even with all the forces of king and kingdom at his side would Geoffrey risk an encounter with the man whom he had challenged and fled from at Domfront. [477] Will. Jumièges, l. vii. c. 24 (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 281) says he was there; but see Mr. Freeman’s remarks, _Norm. Conq._, vol. iii., p. 144. [478] Charter of William of Passavant, dated Montilliers, 1053, in _Archives d’Anjou_ (Marchegay), vol. i. p. 271. Besly (_Comtes de Poitou, preuves_, p. 327) printed it with the date 1043, and it is apparently on this that the _Art de vérifier les dates_ founds a war between Geoffrey and Peter-William in that year--an almost impossible thing.