reinstated in the king’s confidence and favour. On the other hand, when three of the men who had deserted Henry and transferred their allegiance to Richard asked for restitution of their lands of which Henry had disseised them, Richard gave it, but disseised them again immediately, “saying that such was the due reward of traitors who in time of need forsake their lords and help others against them”; and he treated with coldness and aversion all, save one, who had thus acted. The exception was John, who when he presented himself before his brother was “received with honour”[365] and “kindly comforted.”[366] [Sidenote: _July 8-20_] Richard next proceeded into Normandy. At Séez the archbishops of Rouen and Canterbury met him, and (acting doubtless under a commission from the legate) absolved him from excommunication.[367] On July 20 he received the ducal sword and banner of Normandy at the high altar of Rouen cathedral, and immediately afterwards the fealty of the Norman clergy and people.[368] He then went to Gisors for a conference with the king of France. The French historiographer-royal notes that as “the count of Poitou” set foot in the great border-fortress about which he and his father had wrangled so long with Philip, fire broke out within it, and that next day as he rode forth the wooden bridge broke down under him and he and his horse fell into [Sidenote: _July 22_] the ditch.[369] The conference took place on the 22nd, between Chaumont and Trie.[370] Philip began by renewing his original claim to Gisors, but waived it on receiving an intimation that Richard still purposed to marry Aloysia.[371] The French king seems to have further claimed a large share of the castles and towns which he had taken from Henry, including Châteauroux, Le Mans, and Tours. Submission to such a demand would unquestionably have brought upon Richard, as an English chronicler says, “shame and everlasting contempt”; indeed, he would have been within his feudal right in refusing it entirely, on the ground that no forfeiture on his father’s part could invalidate the grant of all these fiefs which had been made to himself by Philip in November 1188. He consented, however, to resign once for all his rights in Auvergne, and two little fiefs in Aquitanian Berry that lay close to the French Royal Domain—Graçay and Issoudun; and he bought off Philip’s other demands by a promise of four thousand marks in addition to the twenty thousand due from Henry under the convention of Colombières.[372] These terms Philip accepted. Richard renewed his homage to his overlord, and they agreed to set out on the Crusade together in Lent of the next year.[373]