Thus perished Chancellor Flotte, the foremost of Philippe's law lords, of that new _noblesse de robe_ which he had raised up to counterbalance the might of the old _noblesse d'épée_, of that band of _chevaliers ès lois_, as they loved to style themselves, by whose astute aid he was gradually changing monarchy into despotism, and who, as Kervyn notes, 'under the grandson of St. Louis, became the tyrants of France.' Philippe had found him on the dunghill, and he made him to sit among the princes of his people. He was a shrewd, hard-headed man of business, and of good qualities, at least, he possessed these: fidelity to the cause he served, and loyalty to the man who made him. He had sworn not to return to France until he had wiped out the indignity which had been put on him by Bruges, and, as we have seen, he kept his word. On the other side it had gone hard with the Provost of Maestricht, who was carried out of the battle with his temples streaming with blood. If it had not been for the presence of mind of his esquire, this circumstance would perhaps have caused a panic. He, swiftly buckling on his master's armour and galloping into the thick of the fight, cried out, 'It is I, William of Juliers, come back to do battle,' and so saved the situation. It was not yet noon when the Count of Artois dashed to the front, crying out as he did so, 'Let those who are faithful follow.' Presently he came to a great dyke. Digging his spurs into his horse's flanks, he cleared it at a bound, and was alone in the midst of the Flemings. In an instant he had seized the banner of Flanders and torn it to shreds, but in bending forward to grasp it, his foot slipped out of his stirrup, and William Van Sæftingen, a monk of Hacket's abbey at Lisseweghe, who had fled from his cell to join the fight, dragged him from his saddle, and at the same moment someone wrenched away his sword. 'I surrender, I surrender,' he cried, but with brutal irony his assailants feigned not to understand, and before Guy of Namur could interfere to save him, the Count of Artois was dead. Although deprived of their leaders, the French knights fought with their wonted valour, but amid the slime and dykes of the _Bloed-Meersch_ cavalry was worse than useless, and before nightfall the first and second lines of the great army of invasion were cut to pieces. The third battalion--the reserve force--had taken no part in the engagement, and a handful of the men who formed it succeeded in making their escape, but they fled in the greatest disorder, and their retreat was nothing less than a rout. For the rest, seventy-five noblemen, a thousand knights and three thousand esquires were among the slain, and the sum-total of the French losses are said to have amounted to twenty thousand, whilst the Flemish estimated theirs at a hundred all told.