Within a year, desolation was spread throughout a wide district. Fire and sword did their devastating work, and the earth was swept of the crops, dwellings, and human beings, which lay between the invaders and Luxembourg. The city was ultimately taken by surprise, and the good Philip delivered it up to pillage; then ensued a scene which hell itself could not equal; and the Duke and his followers having enacted horrors from which devils would have recoiled, they returned to Brussels, where they were received with ten times more delight than if they had come back from an expedition which had been undertaken for the benefit of humanity. What was called _peace_ now followed, and Jacques de Lelaing, having fleshed his maiden sword, and gained the praise of brave men, and the love of fair women, resolved to commence a series of provincial excursions for his own especial benefit. As, in modern times, professors without scholars, and actors without engagements, wander from town to town, and give lectures at “the King’s Arms,” so Jacques de Lelaing went forth upon his way, offering to fight all comers, in presence of kings themselves. His first appearance on this provincial tour was at Nancy, in 1445, where a brilliant French Court was holding joyous festival while awaiting the coming of Suffolk, who was commissioned to escort to England a royal bride, in the person of Margaret of Anjou. The French knights made light of the soldier of Burgundy; but Jacques, when announcing that he was the holder of the tournament, added that no French knight should unhorse him, unless God and his good lady decreed otherwise. The latter was not likely, and he felt himself secure, doubly so, for he rode into the lists decorated with favors, gold embroidery, and rich jewels, the gifts of the Duchesses of Orleans and Calabria, each of whom fondly believed that she was the sole fair one by whose bright eyes Jacques de Lelaing swore his prettiest oath. Accordingly, there was not a cavalier who rode against him in that passage of arms, who left the field otherwise than with broken or bruised bones. “What manner of man will this be?” cried they, “if, even as a lad, he lays on so lustily?”