On May 6 Richard issued, at Fontenay, a charter for the foundation of another religious house, a small minster dedicated to S. Andrew, at Gourfaille, in the same neighbourhood.[460] [Sidenote: _May 8_] Two days later he was at Cognac;[461] a month [Sidenote: _June 6_] later, at Bayonne,[462] and it seems to have been about this time that he besieged and took the castle of Chis in the county of Bigorre and hanged its lord for the crime of having robbed pilgrims to S. James and other persons who passed through his lands.[463] By June 20 Richard was again at Chinon;[464] thence he went to Tours, where he held a final conference with Philip,[465] and received his pilgrim’s scrip and staff from the hands of Archbishop Bartholomew.[466] He seems to have characteristically proved the staff by leaning on it with all his gigantic strength, for a chronicler adds: “When the king leaned on the staff, it broke.”[467] Never before, probably never again, was there seen at Tours such a muster as that of the Crusaders who followed the banner of Richard the Lion Heart. City and suburbs were overcrowded; “there were many good knights and famous crossbowmen; and dames and damsels were sorrowful and heavy-hearted for their friends who were going away, and all the people were in sadness because of their valiant lord’s departure” when he and his host set out [Sidenote: _June 27_] “with a good courage”[468] on June 27 for Vézelay. Whether the two kings actually kept their tryst on the appointed day, July 1, is doubtful. Richard was certainly at the meeting-place on the 3rd, but according to one account Philip did not arrive till the 4th.[469] When they did meet, they took a reciprocal oath that they would loyally divide between them whatever conquests they should make together, and that whichever of them reached Messina first should wait there for the other.[470] They spent two days at Vézelay together,[471] and then at last the united host began its march towards the Holy Land, “the two kings riding in front and discoursing of their great journey.”[472] CHAPTER II THE OUTWARD VOYAGE 1190 Initia Regis Ricardi, qui nondum elapso triennio regni sui probitatis suae radios longe lateque dispersit; nam Messanas civitatem Siciliae uno die viriliter subjecit, et terram Cypri in quindecim diebus potenter subjugavit.—_Chron. Edw. II_, auct. monacho Malmesburiensi, ii. 191.