The rally led by the Duke d’Alençon was the final effort of the first line of the French. It was now, we must suppose, that the English found themselves indebted to the strange protection of which one of the chroniclers speaks--a pile of French corpses so high that it sheltered them as they poured their arrows into the foe. The second line seems to have made no separate attempt to restore the fortune of the day. The unceasing shower of the English shafts, the advance of Henry and his men-at-arms, and, finally, the charge of the force which had been put in ambush on their left flank, drove them in unresisting flight. Among the leaders of the third line there were found some who showed more courage, perhaps we should say presence of mind, for courage was not wanting to the vanquished on that day. The Lord of Fauquemberg, with some other nobles, had with difficulty kept a few hundred men-at-arms together, with whom they now made a gallant charge on the English: it was useless; they were killed or made prisoners to a man. A few other such efforts were made by isolated bodies in various parts of the field, but all were equally hopeless. Everywhere the French were routed, slain, or taken. The victory of the English was complete. The glory of this victory was marred by a deplorable incident. News was brought to Henry that the enemy were attacking his rear, and had already captured a large part of his baggage. The battle was not yet over, but it was already clear which way it was going: “during the heat of the combat, when the English had gained the upper hand and made several prisoners,” are the words which Monstrelet uses to describe the time. But victory, though in sight, was not yet gained. Henry knew that the forces of the enemy still outnumbered his own. Even yet, were they to know that any part of his line had been broken, they might rally and change the fortune of the day. Were such an effort to be made, the prisoners, of whom a considerable number had already been taken, would be a formidable danger. At the best they would require a guard of fighting men, which he could not spare; they might even take part in the attack. The safety of the army seemed to require decisive and instant action, and accordingly Henry issued orders that the prisoners were to be killed. It may well have been a necessity, but it was a necessity of the most deplorable kind. Yet we must not suppose that the opinion of those days regarded the act as it would be regarded by ourselves. “It was a most lamentable thing,” writes a Norman gentleman who was with the English army, and who was probably an eye-witness of the scene, “for all these noblemen of France were there killed and cut to pieces, heads and faces; it was a fearful sight to see.” The natural human horror at so bloody a spectacle comes out in the last words; but what seemed so lamentable a thing to the Sieur de St. Remy was that so many _noblemen_ of France should be thus slaughtered. For prisoners,