In 1214 John made his most formidable effort, dispatching an army to Flanders to unite with that of the powerful Flemish Count Ferrand, one of Philip’s tenants-in-chief, and with the Emperor Otto IV, in a combined attack on the northern French frontier. At Bouvines the armies met, Philip Augustus, in command of his forces, riding with a joyful face ‘no less than if he had been bidden to a wedding’. The battle, when it opened, found him wherever the fight was hottest, wielding his sword, encouraging, rallying, until by nightfall he remained victor of the field, with the Count of Flanders and many another of his chief enemies, including the English commander, prisoners at his mercy. Philip carried Count Ferrand behind him in chains on his triumphal march to Paris, while all the churches along the way rang their bells, and the crowds poured forth to cheer their king and sing _Te Deums_. ‘The Battle of Bouvines was perhaps the most important engagement ever fought on French soil.’ So wrote a modern historian before the war of 1914. In the days of Louis VII the Kings of France had stood dwarfed amid Dukes of Normandy and Aquitaine and Counts of Flanders and Anjou. Now the son of Louis had defeated an emperor, thrown one rebellious tenant-in-chief into a dungeon, and from another, the Angevin John, gained as the reward of his victory all the long-coveted provinces north of the Loire. Even the crown treasury, once so poor, was replete for the time with the revenues of the confiscated Norman and Angevin estates of English barons, who had been forbidden by their sovereign to do homage any more to a French overlord. Philip Augustus had shown himself Philip ‘the Conqueror’; but he was something far greater--a king who, like Henry II of England, could build as well as destroy. During his reign the menace of the old feudal baronage was swept away, and the government received its permanent stamp as a servant of the monarchy. In his dealing with the French Church Philip followed the traditions of Pepin the Short and Charlemagne, yet gratifying as were his numerous gifts to monasteries and convents, they were dovetailed into a scheme of combining the liberal patron with the firm master. That good relations between the king and clergy resulted was largely due to Philip’s policy of replacing bishops belonging to powerful families by men of humble origin accustomed to subservience. Also he would usually support the lesser clergy in their frequent quarrels with their ecclesiastical superiors, thus weakening the leaders while he won the affection of the rank and file. [Sidenote: Innocent III and France]