[1219] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 45. [1220] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. ii. pp. 45, 46. [1221] According to R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 55, the conference began on August 16 and lasted three days. The _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 47, place it after September 1, but this is impossible. Will. Armor., _Gesta Phil. Aug._ (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._, vol. v.), p. 74, and _Philipp._, l. iii. (_ibid._) pp. 123, 124, tells the story of the tree in a very odd shape. He says the English were sitting comfortably under its shade, while the French were broiling in the sun, and the French grew so envious of the more agreeable situation of their foes that they made a dash at them, put them to flight, and then cut down the tree, which Henry had caused to be carefully enclosed, as a sort of symbol of his ownership in the soil. R. Diceto, however, says that the ground on which the tree stood was French. Richard had now rejoined his father,[1222] and at his instigation an attack was made by their united forces upon Mantes, which was occupied by a small French force under William des Barres, lately the commandant of Châteauroux. Richard succeeded in avenging his recent mishap at Châteauroux by taking William prisoner, but he made his escape immediately, and nothing was gained by the expedition.[1223] Richard again went into Berry; Henry lingered on the Norman border, where soon afterwards he received from Philip a demand for another conference. It took place at Châtillon on October 7, but again without result. Philip now followed Richard, who thereupon opened negotiations on his own account, offering to submit his quarrel with Toulouse to the judgement of the French king’s court;[1224] but this also came to nothing. Still the negotiations went on, and Henry’s difficulties were increasing. Chief among them was the want of money to pay his soldiers. His realms had been almost drained for the Saladin tithe; his own treasury was exhausted; his troops, seeing no prospect of either wages or plunder, began to slip away; and at last he was obliged to disband his mercenaries and send his Welsh auxiliaries back to their own country.[1225] Philip meanwhile was secretly in communication with Richard;[1226] and Richard was growing eager to bring matters to a crisis. The insidious whispers of France and Flanders had done their work in his too credulous mind. To the end of his life Richard was but little of a statesman and less of a diplomatist; it is therefore no wonder that he failed on the one hand to fathom the subtle policy of his father, and on the other to see through the wiles of Philip. His fault lay in this--that while Henry’s servants were content to trust him where they could not understand him, his own son was ready to find a ground of suspicion in every word and action of his father’s for