To the three "battles" thus marshalled and advancing along the road, John added a special vanguard, the constitution of which must be carefully noted. It was sent forward under the two marshals, Audrehen and Clermont. They commanded: _first_, 300 fully-armoured and mounted men-at-arms, who rode at the head; _next_, and following immediately behind these, certain German auxiliaries, also mounted, in what precise numbers we do not know, but few; _thirdly_, 2000 spearmen on foot, and with them the whole 2000 cross-bowmen using the only missile weapons at John's disposal. It will be seen that something like a third of John's whole force, and nearly half the trained part, was thus detached to form the vanguard in front of the three marching columns. Its function and mishap we shall gather when we come to the contact between them and Edward's force. Meanwhile, we must conceive of the French army as breaking camp some time between six and seven o'clock of the Monday, forming in three columns upon the Nouaillé road, with the king commanding the largest rear column, his brother, the Duke of Orleans, the column immediately in front, and the King's son and heir, the Duke of Normandy, in front of Orleans; while ahead of all these three columns marched the 4000 or 5000 men of the vanguard under the marshals, with their 300 picked knights leading the whole. It must have been at about eight o'clock that the men thus riding with the marshals in front of the French advance came up the slight slope near La Moudurerie, topped the hill, and saw, six or seven hundred yards in front of them, beyond the little depression, the vineyards and the hedge behind the vineyards, and behind that hedge again the massed first line of the Black Prince's force. Off in the rear to the right they could see the Black Prince's banner, making away down towards the river, and soon dropping out of sight behind the shoulder of the hill. The special waggons of booty, with Warwick and their escort, must already have disappeared when the French thus had their first glimpse of the enemy. The sight of the Black Prince's banner disappearing down into the valley on the right rear, rightly decided the French vanguard that their enemy had determined upon a retreat, and had actually begun it. The force in front of them, behind the hedge, large as it was, they rightly conceived to be the rearguard left to protect that retreat. They determined to attack at once; and the nature of the attack, which had carefully been planned beforehand under the advice of Douglas, the Scotchman who was fighting on King John's side, and who had experience of the new Plantagenet tactics, must next be grasped.