To accomplish their plan, it was necessary that the governor, sir Simon de Lalain, should be informed of it; and on the 25th day of April, three of their men offered to carry thither letters, on paying them fifty crowns each. These letters were to inform him of the hour on which they intended to make the attempt, that he might co-operate with them. The messengers, on approaching Oudenarde, found it so closely blockaded that they had no chance of gaining admittance on the land side; they therefore stripped themselves naked and plunged into the Scheld, which is there wide and deep, swam into the town, and delivered their letters. Sir Simon was much pleased with the intelligence. In the mean time, the count advanced with his Picards in three battalions: the van under the command of Anthony bastard of Burgundy, the lord de Saveuses, and others: the center under the count himself, grandly accompanied,--and in the rear division were very many valiant men at arms and archers. When they were nearly approached to the enemy, the lord de Saveuses knighted, with his own hand, the lord d'Estampes, who had not before received that honour; and then the count instantly made fifty-two more knights, the first of whom was Anthony bastard of Burgundy. When arrived within a quarter of a league from Oudenarde, they fell in with a body of four or five hundred ghent men, posted there to defend a narrow pass. The Picards advanced to attack them, but came to a hollow way, of difficult descent, which forced them to make a circuit. Their leaders were sir James de Lalain, the lords de Bauf-segnies, de Crevecœur, de Bosqueaux, and du Bos,--and one called le Bourgognon was with them. Having passed the hollow way, they pushed through the ghent men, who were drawn up; and wheeling round, sir James de Lalain charged them sword in hand. He was instantly surrounded by the enemy,--and had it not been for the timely succour of the Bourgognon, who extricated him from this danger, he must have been killed. When the ghent men perceived that the main body of the Picards had passed the hollow way, they fled for a church near Oudenarde, where they were almost all put to death. This done, the count d'Estampes ordered the archers to dismount,--but the blockade was so complete that no sally was attempted from the town. However, the ghent men on the other side of the Scheld were cut off, for want of a bridge, from succouring the division on this side, which, as it afterward turned out, proved their destruction.