do it if you please; for I am but one man against you all. Think better of it, for the love of God: recollect former times, and consider how many favors and kindnesses I have conferred upon you. You wish to give me a sorry recompense for all the generosities you have had at my hands. You are not ignorant, that, when commerce was dead in this country, it was I who restored it. I afterwards governed you in so peaceable a manner, that under my administration you had all things according to your wishes.” They began to bawl out, “Come down, and do not preach to us from such a height; for we will have an account and statement of the great treasures of Flanders, which you have governed too long without rendering any account; and it is not proper for an officer to receive the rents of a lord, or of a country, without accounting for them.” When Jacob von Artaveld saw that he could not appease or calm them, he shut the window, and intended getting out of his house the back way, to take shelter in a church adjoining; but his hotel was already broken into on that side, and upwards of four hundred were there calling out to him. At last he was seized by them, and slain without mercy: his death-stroke was given him by a saddler called Thomas Denys. CHAPTER XLIII. SIR JOHN OF HAINAULT QUITS THE ALLIANCE OF ENGLAND FOR THAT OF FRANCE. Soon after this, King Philip of France endeavored by a treaty, through the means of the Earl of Blois, to persuade Sir John of Hainault to take part with France. In order to make him alter his opinion of the English, they made him believe that they would not pay him his subsidy for a considerable time. This put Sir John so much out of humor, that he renounced all treaties and agreements which he had entered into with England. The King of France was no sooner informed of it, than he sent to him persons sufficiently authorized, who retained him, as well as his counsel for France, at a certain salary; and he recompensed him in his kingdom with a greater revenue than he derived from England. CHAPTER XLIV. THE DUKE OF NORMANDY MARCHES WITH A GREAT ARMY INTO GASCONY, AGAINST THE EARL OF DERBY. The King of France, having received information of the expeditions and conquests that the Earl of Derby had made in Gascony, issued a special summons for all nobles and others that were capable of bearing arms to assemble in the cities of Orleans and Bourges, and in that neighborhood, by a certain day.