Froissart's pages furnish us with an interesting tale, descriptive of the general chivalric custom, regarding the dagger of mercy. About the year 1390, the lord of Langurante in Gascony rode forth with forty spears and approached the English fortress called Cadilhac. He placed his company in ambush, and said to them, "Sirs, tarry you still here, and I will go and ride to yonder fortress alone, and see if any will issue out against us." He then rode to the barriers of the castle, and desired the keeper to shew to Bernard Courant, their captain, how that the lord Langurante was there, and desired to joust with him a course. "If he be so good a man, and so valiant in arms as it is said," continued the challenger, "he will not refuse it for his ladies sake: if he do, it shall turn him to much blame, for I shall report it wheresoever I go, that for cowardice he hath refused to run with me one course with a spear." A squire of Bernard reported this message to his master, whose heart beginning to swell with ire, he cried, "Get me my harness, and saddle my horse; he shall not go refused." Incontinently he was armed, and mounted on his war steed, and taking his shield and spear, he rode through the gate and the barriers into the open field. The lord Langurante seeing him coming was rejoiced, and couched his spear like a true knight, and so did Bernard. Their good horses dashed at each other, and their lances struck with such equal fierceness that their shields fell in pieces, and as they crossed Bernard shouldered sir Langurante's horse in such a manner that the lord fell out of the saddle. Bernard turned his steed shortly round, and as the lord Langurante was rising, his foe, who was a strong as well as a valiant squire, took his bacinet with both his hands, and wrenching it from his head, cast it under his horse's feet. On seeing all this the lord of Langurante's men quitted their ambush, and were coming to the rescue of their master, when Bernard drew his dagger, and said to the lord, "Sir, yield you my prisoner, rescue or no rescue; or else you are but dead." The lord, who trusted to the rescue of his men, spoke not a word; and Bernard then gave him a death-blow on his bare head, and dashing spurs into his horse, he fled within the barriers.[113] * * * * * [Sidenote: Value of enquiries into ancient armour.] Such was the general state of armour in days of chivalry. A more detailed account of the subject cannot be interesting; for what boots it to know the exact form and dimensions of any of the numerous plates of steel that encased the knight. Nor indeed was any shape constant long; for fashion was as variable and imperious in all her changes in those times as in ours; and as we turn with contempt from the military foppery of the present day, little gratification can be expected from too minute an inspection of the vanities of our forefather. Chaucer says,