At Agincourt the circumstances were very different, but quite as fatal to the French. That battle was fought on the 25th of October, 1415, and the French should have won it according to all the rules of war,--but they did not win it, because they had too much valor and too little sense. A cautious coward makes a better soldier than a valiant fool, and the boiling bravery of the French has lost them more battles than any other people have lost through timidity. Henry V.'s invasion of France was the most wicked attack that ever was made even by England on a neighboring nation, and it was meeting with its proper reward, when French folly ruined everything. The French overtook the English on the 24th of October, and by judicious action might have destroyed them, for they were by far the more numerous,--though most English authorities, with characteristic "unveracity," grossly exaggerate the inequality of numbers that really did exist between the two armies. On the night of the 24th the rain fell heavily, making the ground quite unfit for the operations of heavy cavalry, in which the strength of the French consisted, while the English had their incomparable archers, the worthy predecessors of the English infantry of to-day, one of whom was calculated to do more efficient service than could have been expected, as the circumstances of the field were, from ten knights cumbered with bulky mail. Sir Harris Nicolas, the most candid English historian of the battle, and who prepared a very useful, but unreadable volume concerning it, after speaking of the bad arrangements adopted by the French, proceeds to say,--"The inconveniences under which the French labored were much increased by the state of the ground, which was not only soft from heavy rains, but was broken up by their horses during the preceding night, the weather having obliged the valets and pages to keep them in motion. Thus the statement of French historians may readily be credited, that, from the ponderous armor with which the men-at-arms were enveloped, and the softness of the ground, it was with the utmost difficulty they could either move or lift their weapons, notwithstanding their lances had been shortened to enable them to fight closely,--that the horses at every step sunk so deeply into the mud, that it required great exertion to extricate them,--and that the narrowness of the place caused their archers to be so crowded as to prevent them from drawing their bows." Michelet's description of the day is the best that can be read, and he tells us, that, when the signal of battle was given by Sir Thomas Erpingham, the English shouted, but "the French army, to their great astonishment, remained motionless. Horses and knights appeared to be enchanted, or struck dead in their armor. The fact was, that their large battle-steeds, weighed down with their heavy riders and lumbering caparisons of iron, had all their feet completely sunk in the deep wet