For there without fail did he so many acts of arms, that all marvelled, and there bore himself so knightly, that whoso saw him still avers there never was any man, knight or other, seen to do in one day more brave and valiant acts than he did then.”[109] The Earl of Nevers, the Lord of Coucy, and the other French nobility well approved their valour; but Boucicaut, if we may trust his biographer, was the hero of the day. Mounted on a powerful war–horse, he spurred forwards, and struck so fiercely to the right and to the left that he overthrew everything before him. “And ever doing thus, he advanced so far, which is a marvellous thing to relate, and yet true, as all who saw it can bear witness, that he cut through the whole Saracen array, and then returned back through them to his comrades. Heaven, what a knight! God protect his valour! Pity will it be when life shall fail him! But it will not be so yet, for God will protect him. Thus fought our countrymen as long as their strength lasted. Ah, what pity for so noble a company, approved so gentle, so chivalrous, so excellent in arms, which could have succour from no quarter, so ran they in to their enemies’ throats, so as is the iron on the anvil![110] For they were surrounded and oppressed so fatally on all sides that they could no longer resist. And what wonder? for there were more than twenty Saracens against one Christian! And yet our people killed more than 20,000 of them, but at last they could exert themselves no more. Ah, what a misfortune, what pity! Ought not those disloyal Christians to have been hanged who thus falsely abandoned them? Shame fall upon them, for had they helped the valiant French and their comrades with good will, not Bajazet nor one of his Turks would have escaped death or captivity, which would have been a mighty good to all Christendom.