Before the battle commenced, a frugal repast was served out to the men. The town archives of Bruges have preserved for us the bill of fare--fish, eggs, mustard and sorrel. Nor were omens lacking which presaged the fortune of the coming fray. A flock of doves hovered about the heads of the Flemish host, whilst over the French squadrons there wheeled ravens. Rumour said too that the Count of Artois had risen from his bed full of evil forebodings, that his favourite hound had attacked him and almost fastened to his throat, and that when he sprang into his saddle, his charger had reared three times before he would start. A more certain augury of misfortune was the impatient ardour which fretted his soul, and some grey-headed knights called to mind that fifty-three years before his father's impetuous temper had, at the battle of Mansourah, wrecked another French host. Amongst the mercenaries whose assistance the French King had bought was a band of famous archers recruited in Genoa. These men at the opening of the conflict, stealthily advancing along the road to Sweveghem, presently espied on the other side of a thick hedge which skirted the banks of a stream a company of Flemish bowmen, and in less than the twinkling of an eye the arrows of the Italians were playing havoc with them. But if the foreigners' sharpshooting discomfited their opponents, it afforded no consolation to their French paymasters, and one of them appealed to Artois. 'Sire,' he burst out in the bitterness of his soul, 'sire, if these villains do so much, the day will be theirs, and what share will the nobles have in the glory?' 'Then let them charge,' was the reply. In vain that shrewd old fox Flotte pointed out that when once the Italian archers had broken the Flemish ranks and constrained them to quit their entrenchment, the nobles alone would have the glory of putting the enemy to flight. Artois refused to hear him. 'By the devil,' he cried, 'Pierre, you have still the wolf's skin,' and the knights rushed forward, trampling under their horses' hoofs the Italian archers, and even cutting their bow-strings with their swords.