In order to bring the whole affair to a conclusion, consultation was now taken for the place that might be most convenient for the proposed interview between the two kings, and commissioners were appointed to survey it,--the lord du Bouchage and Commines on the French part, and the lord Howard, Thomas St. Leger, and a herald on the English. Upon taking view of the river, they agreed upon Picquigny, where the Somme is neither wide nor fordable. On the one side, by which king Louis would approach, was a fine open country; and on the other side it was the same, only when king Edward came to the river, he was obliged to traverse a causeway about two bow-shots in length, with marshes on both sides, "which might (remarks Commines) have produced very dangerous consequences to the English, if our intentions had not been honourable. And certainly, as I have said before, the English do not manage their treaties and capitulations with so much cunning and policy as the French do, let people say what they will, but proceed more openly, and with greater straightforwardness; yet a man must be careful, and take heed not to affront them, for it is dangerous meddling with them." When the place of meeting was settled, the next business was to build a bridge, {xxxvii} which was done by French carpenters. The bridge was large and strong, and in the midst was contrived a massive wooden lattice, such as lions' cages were made with, every aperture between the bars being no wider than to admit a man's arm; at the top were merely boards to keep off the rain, and the area was large enough to contain ten or twelve men on a side, the bars running full out to either side of the bridge, to hinder any person from passing either to the one side or the other. For passage across the river there was provided only one small boat, rowed by two men. The incident in French history which suggested these extraordinary precautions had occurred fifty-six years before; when, at a similar meeting upon a bridge at Montereau fault Yonne, John duke of Burgundy and his attendants were treacherously slaughtered in the presence of Charles the Seventh (then Dauphin), in revenge for the murder of Louis duke of Orleans. In the barricade of that fatal bridge there was a wicket, which the duke himself incautiously opened; a circumstance which the timid Louis well remembered, and he now repeated the story to Commines, and expressly commanded that there should be no such doorway.