Just before the battle John had confessed and received absolution and eucharist, so that his conscience was clear for a new score. He ordered that no quarter be given, and the conflict became a massacre. But few of the men of Liége escaped. Their leader a citizen named Pervez was found dead on the field, still holding by the hand, his son dead by his side. The Liégeois were crushed, and their mitred but unregenerate suzerain was again set to reign over them. What with those who had perished in the massacre and those he threw directly after into the Meuse, it would seem that he had not many subjects left to govern. In the articles of submission which the surviving few were compelled to sign, it was agreed that if they were again disobedient, they were to be laid under that awful discipline an interdict, provided there existed any authority competent to fulminate interdicts. The Schism comes up again to explain this curious proviso. The Council of Pisa was sitting to restore unity to the Church. They had declared the throne of Saint Peter to be one and indivisible; and they had declared it vacant in spite of the incumbent at Rome and the incumbent at Avignon. They had elected a new pope to that vacancy. The other two refused to abdicate, so there were three popes; and as each was himself under double interdict by the anathemas launched at him by his own rivals, it was doubtful whether a rescript from such maimed authority would be canonical. So paralysed was the Church that even her curses would no longer hold. The degree to which they recovered their validity when the Schism was healed, is a point of history that illustrates the saying that truth is stranger than fiction. The news of the victory of Hasbain was not good news to the queen and the court who favored the Orleans faction, and were alarmed at the growing power of the duke of Burgundy. A council was held, and the king spirited away to Tours. An accidental delay of the duke, gave them time for this. He had stopped at Lille to settle a quarrel between his brother, Anthony and his brother-in-law William of Hainault, touching 50,000 florins left by the late duchess of Brabant. They were on the point of deciding by mortal combat which should have the money, when the duke came. I regret I cannot inform you which of them got the 50,000 florins. The escape of the king from under his hand, was a serious loss to the duke who was aiming at supreme control; and on reaching Paris he bent all his diplomacy to recover possession of the monarch. He won over the grand master of the king’s household, a parvenu named Montague; and by his means Charles was brought back to the capital.