"The English reinforcements arrived too late and served no other purpose but that of inducing Philip to grant the Flemings a truce for two years. A fruitless attempt was made with the help of Pope Boniface VIII, to change the truce into a lasting peace. The very day on which it expired, Charles, Count of Valois, and brother of Philip the Handsome, entered Flanders with a powerful army, surprised Douai,... gave a reception to its magistrates who came and offered him the keys. 'The burghers of the towns of Flanders,' says a chronicler of the age, 'were all bribed by gifts or promises from the King of France, who would never have dared to invade their frontier had they been faithful to their Count.' The Flemish communes desired the peace necessary for the prosperity of their commerce; but patriotic anxieties wrested with material interests.... "In the spring of 1304 the cry of war resounded everywhere. Philip had laid an import extraordinary upon all real property in his kingdom; regulars and reserves had been summoned to Arras to attack the Flemings by land and sea. He had taken into his pay a Genoese fleet commanded by Regnier de Grimaldi, a celebrated Italian admiral; and it arrived in the North Sea, blockaded Zierickzee, a maritime town of Zealand.... The Flemish fleet was beaten. A great battle took place on the 17th of August between the two great land armies at Mons-en-Puelle, or Mont-en-Pévèle, according to the true local spelling, near Lille. The action was for some time indecisive, and even after it was over both sides hesitated about claiming a victory; but when the Flemings saw their camp swept off and rifled, and when they no longer found in it 'their fine stuffs of Bruges and Ypres, their wines of Rochelle, their beers of Cambrai, and their cheeses of Bethune,' they declared that they would return to their hearths; and their leaders, unable to restrain them, were obliged to shut themselves up in Lille, whither Philip, who had himself retired to Arras, came to besiege them. When the first days of downheartedness were over, and the danger which threatened Lille, and the remains of the Flemish army became evident, all Flanders rushed to arms. "The labors of the workshop and the field were everywhere suspended; the women kept guard in the towns; you might traverse the country without meeting a single man, for they were all in the camp at Courtrai, to the number of twelve hundred thousand (!) according to popular exaggeration, swearing to one another that they would rather die fighting than live in slavery. Philip was astounded. "'I thought the Flemings were destroyed,' said he, 'but they seem to rain from heaven.' "The burghers of Bruges had made themselves a new seal whereon the old symbol of the bridge of their city on the river Reye was replaced by the Lion of Flanders, wearing the crown and armed with the cross, with this inscription: 'The Lion hath roared and burst his fetters' (Rugiit leo, Vincula fregit).