Had strict military rule commanded the feudal spirit (which it never did), John would have accepted defeat. To have ridden off with what was still intact of his force, to wit, his own command, the third "battle," would have been personally shameful to him as a knight, but politically far less disastrous than the consequences of the chivalrous resolve he now made. He had left, to make one supreme effort, perhaps five, perhaps six thousand men. Archers wherewith to meet the enemy's archers he had none. What number of fully-armoured men-at-arms he had with him we cannot tell, but, at any rate, enough in his judgment to make the attempt upon which he had decided. The rest of the large force that was with him was of less considerable military value; but, on the other hand, he could calculate not unjustly upon the fact that all his men were fresh, and that he was leading them against a body that had struggled for two hours against two fierce assaults, and one that has but just emerged--unbroken, it is true--from a particularly severe hand-to-hand fight. John, then, determined to advance and, if possible, with this last reserve to carry the position. It was dismounted, as he had ordered and wished all his men-at-arms to be, and the King of France led this last body of knights eastward across the little dip of land. As that large, fresh body of mailed men approached the edge of the depression on its further side, there were those in the Black Prince's force who began to doubt the issue. A picturesque story remains to us of Edward's overhearing a despairing phrase, and casting at its author the retort that he had lied damnably if he so blasphemed as to say the Black Prince could be conquered alive.