While the king and his whole army were on Mount Ypres, many markets were there held, and plenty of pillage was sold to those of Lille, Douay, and Tournay, indeed, to all who wished to buy. A piece of cloth of Vexin, Malines, Poperingue, or Commines, was sold for one franc. People were clothed there too cheaply. Some Bretons and other pillagers, determined on gain, went in large bodies, and loaded carts and horses with their booty of cloths, linen, knives, money in gold and silver, dishes and plates of silver, wherever they found them, which they sent, well packed up, to a place of safety on the other side of the Lis, or by their servants into France. The king and all the lords came to Ypres, where they quartered themselves as well as they could, and in as great numbers as the town would hold. They remained there to refresh themselves four or five days. We will now return to Philip, and say what he was doing. Being eager to combat the King of France, as he plainly showed, he ordered, on his arrival at Ghent, every man capable of bearing arms, after leaving a sufficient garrison in the town, to follow him. All obeyed; for he gave them to understand that by the grace of God they would defeat the French, be lords of Ghent, and rank as sovereigns among other nations. Philip von Artaveld carried with him about ten thousand men as the arriere-ban: he had before sent to Bruges, Damme, Ardembourg, Sluys, to the seacoasts, the Quatre Mestiers, and constable-wicks of Grammont, Dendremonde, and Alost, and had raised from those places about thirty thousand more. He and his whole army were quartered one night before Oudenarde: on the morrow they marched away, and came before Courtray: he had with him about fifty thousand men. The King of France received intelligence that Philip von Artaveld was approaching, and, as it was said, with full sixty thousand men. Upon this the vanguard set off from Ypres, under the command of the Constable and Marshals of France, and encamped a league and a half from Ypres, between Rollers and Rosebecque. On the morrow the king and all the lords, with the main battalion and rear-guard, quartered themselves there also. I must say that these lords, while they were in the field, suffered greatly; for it was in the heart of winter, the beginning of December, and it rained every day. They slept on the roads every night, for they were in daily and hourly expectation of a battle: it was commonly said in the army, “They will come to-morrow;” which they believed, from the news the foragers brought when they returned from their excursions.