Of course, sometimes there are great battles with great results. Such in the eleventh century was Senlac, when Duke William the Norman won all England. Such, more recently, was the famous day at Bouvines. Such marked several of the Crusades against the Infidels, particularly the great and successful First Crusade, and the Third Crusade, when Richard the Lion Hearted seemed to come nearer than any other feudal general to being a really able tactician, if not a great strategist. These battles are few and far between--and even the mighty Richard's ideal style of fighting was rather that of a headlong cavalier followed by only fifteen knights and with his ponderous ax hewing a bloody lane through a host of Infidels, than that of a careful commander coolly directing a mighty army. Besides, most of the wars between second-class barons involve very small forces. They are only affairs for hundreds. If matters come to grips, the best captain is he who orders "Advance, banner bearer! Follow me, vassals!" and leads the headlong charge. Enormous pains have been taken in training the individual warrior. For personal prowess the French cavalier is as formidable an individual as ever shared the sins of mankind. But he is trained only in simple evolutions when maneuvering in companies. He dislikes taking orders. He wearies of long campaigns. His camps are very unhygienic and subject to pestilence. Wars, in short, are to him superb games, exciting, spiced with danger, and played for large stakes--which give the zest; but, save in the Crusades and certain other rare cases, the higher objects which supply wars with their sole justification escape him entirely. "Warfare," in the true scientific sense of the word, is something whereof your baron is usually in complete ignorance. Earlier in this recital it has been seen that Baron Conon, soon after he obtained the seigneury, engaged in a brisk feud with the Viscount of Foretvert. This was so like many other feuds in the region that it is well to obtain an authentic history thereof from Father Grégoire, who knows all the circumstances. [Sidenote: Beginning of a Feud] The origin of the quarrel (he tells us) was commonplace. Doubtless the viscount had a contemptuous opinion of his then young and untried neighbor. There was a wood betwixt the two seigneuries which had been haltingly claimed by Foretvert; but all through terrible Baron Garnier's time none but St. Aliquis peasants had been suffered to cut fagots there. Now suddenly Huon, one of the forester's helpers, appeared before Conon in a piteous plight. His thumbs had been hewn clean off. He had been chopping timber on the debatable land, had been seized by the viscount's men, haled before their master, and the latter had ordered this treatment, adding, with a grin: "This is the drink penny for touching a twig in my forests. Tell your young lord to spread these tidings among his villeins."