[339] _Ib._ pp. 107, 108. The date--July 6--is given in Chronn. S. Serg., Vindoc. and S. Flor. Salm., a. 1016 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 134, 164, 187). There is an account of the battle in _Hist. S. Flor. Salm._ (_ib._), p. 274, but it has a very impossible look. The victory of Pontlevoy was the turning-point of Fulk’s career. Nine years passed away before Odo recovered from the check enough to make any attempt to avenge it. It seems at first glance strange that Fulk did not employ the interval in pushing forward his conquest of Touraine. But in the eyes of both Fulk and Odo the possession of Touraine was in reality a means rather than an end; and a sort of armed truce, so long as Odo did not provoke him to break it, suited Fulk’s purpose better than a continued war. His western frontier had been secured by his first victory at Conquereux; his eastern frontier was now secured, at any rate for a time, by his victory at Pontlevoy; from the south there was nothing to fear, for the duke of Aquitaine, to whom he owed homage for Loudun, was his staunch friend, and presently gave proof of his friendship by bestowing on him the city of Saintes.[340] Fulk at once made use of the gift as a means of extorting something yet more valuable from a neighbour to whom he owed a far deeper obligation--Herbert of Maine. It may be that they had quarrelled since the days of Pontlevoy; it may be that Herbert had begun that career of nocturnal raids against the fortified towns of Anjou which scared men and beasts from their rest, and gained him his unclassical but expressive surname of “Wake-the-dog.”[341] If so, the wily Angevin took effectual measures to stop them. He enticed the count of Maine to pay him a visit at Saintes, proposing to grant him the investiture of that city. Suddenly, in the midst of conversation, Herbert was seized by Fulk’s servants and flung into prison, whence he was only released at the end of two years, and on submission to such conditions as Fulk chose to dictate.[342] What those conditions were history does not tell; but there can be little doubt that they included some acknowledgment of the suzerain rights of Anjou over Maine, with which Geoffrey Greygown had been invested by Hugh Capet, but which he had not had time to make good, and which Fulk had only enforced for a moment, at the sword’s point, when the aged count Hugh was dying.[343] Fulk’s dealings with Maine are only an episode in his life; but they led even more directly than his struggle with the house of Blois to consequences of the utmost importance. They paved the way for an Angevin conquest of Maine which extended the Angevin power to the Norman border, brought it into contact and collision with the Norman ducal house, and originated the long wars which were ended at last by the marriage of Geoffrey Plantagenet and the Empress Matilda. The imprisonment of Herbert is really the first step in the path which leads from Anjou to England.