"Presently you could see the whole array of the enemy spread out like some fair picture on a long tapestry. On their right, facing our Counts of Ponthieu and Dreux, were the mercenaries under Salisbury, and the men of that foul traitor Boulogne. On their left were the long lines of Flemish horsemen over against our cavaliers of Champagne and Burgundy. But we from Quelqueparte, with so many other companies, were in the center battle where flew King Philip's great oriflamme, a mighty scarlet banner of samite, surrounded by chosen cavaliers. We horsemen were in the rear. In front of us spread the French footmen--the burgher levies of the towns who answered the king's summons. 'Shame that burghers should stand before knights!' cried some of us; but the King and Bishop Garin, who seemed to know everything, understood their business, as you will see. "It is told that just before the hosts charged King Philip prayed aloud before his bodyguard: 'Lord, I am but a man, but I am also a king. Thine it is to guard the king. Thou wilt lose nothing thereby. Wherever thou wouldst go, I will follow thee!' Also I heard that close behind the king there stood, as long as he might, the royal chaplain, William the Breton, who all through the battle, with another clerk, kept singing psalms such as 'Blessed be the Lord my strength, who teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight.' But Bishop Garin sang no psalms. Up and down the lines of horsemen he rode, thundering: 'Extend yourselves, lest the enemy outflank you. One knight should not make another his shield!' So he put all our knights in the first line of the cavalry. In the rear lines he put the mounted sergeants. We had perhaps two thousand knights and five thousand sergeants. Our infantry were over five-and-twenty thousand, but the foe had even more footmen than we, though their horse was a little inferior. Thus the battle was very fair, two lines of men and horses a mile and a half long, and the fields smooth and open enough for a jousting. There never was better place for an honorable battle. "After we had sat in our saddles a long time, thinking of our sins and admiring in a fearsome way the splendor of the great press of the foe opposite, a party of our sergeants suddenly charged out on our right against the Flemings. Their attack was too weak, and the Flemings drove them back and charged in return, their leaders crying, 'Think on your ladies!' as if in a courteous mêlée. Whereat, nothing loath, our Burgundian and Champagnois knights dashed out on them, and long engaged in an uncertain battle, every cavalier selecting a foe and riding against him. Here one side prevailed and here another, and some warriors even dropped to the rear to recover breath and tighten harness, then spurred back to the charge. For a little while we of the center watched them thus; then nearer things engrossed us. [Sidenote: Defeat of the French Infantry]