Meanwhile a meeting between some of the counsellors of the two kings had been arranged to take place at Pont-de-l’Arche; but the Frenchmen failed to keep tryst, and instead, Philip “with a considerable force” appeared before Fontaines, four miles from Rouen. After four days’ siege he took the castle and destroyed it.[1159] On his way back into France he captured a valuable English prisoner, the earl of Leicester.[1160] Three days later—on June 17—a conference of Norman and French prelates and magnates met, with the sanction of the two kings, near Vaudreuil, to arrange a truce. They failed because Philip insisted that all his own adherents and all those of Richard should be precluded from molesting one another during the truce between their sovereigns, and to this Richard would not consent, “because he would not violate the laws and customs of Poitou and of his other lands where it was customary from of old that the magnates should fight out their own disputes among themselves.” Philip next made a dash at Evreux and “nearly destroyed it.”[1161] Thence he moved southward through the county of Blois, and was encamped somewhere between Fréteval and Vendôme when Richard, hurrying up from Loches, pitched his tents outside the little unfortified town of Vendôme and there, “as confidently as if he were surrounded by a wall,” waited for further tidings of his enemy. They came in the form of a message, bidding him expect on that very day a hostile visit from the French king; to which he answered that he was ready, and that if the visit were not made as announced, Philip might look for one from him on the morrow. The day passed; [Sidenote: _July 4_] early next morning Richard called up his men and set forth to seek the enemy, who hurriedly retired upon Fréteval. Richard dashed after him through the woods, fell unexpectedly upon his rear, and captured the whole of his baggage-train; many Frenchmen were slain, many made prisoners, and the spoil included not only a large quantity of arms and treasures, but also the whole bundle of the charters given to Philip by the Norman traitors who had transferred their allegiance to him.[1162] Richard himself sought a loftier prize; he pursued the French host in search of its king, resolved to have him alive or dead. A Flemish soldier told him that Philip was far ahead in the van; in reality, that cautious monarch had turned aside and taken shelter in a church. Richard, mounted as usual on a charger as fiery as himself, spurred on across the frontier of Normandy and France till the animal could go no further, and Mercadier, having somehow contrived to overtake his master, managed also to furnish him with another horse on which he rode back to Vendôme.[1163]