the importance of that triumph which
elicited their cheers. The battle of Bouvines was not the victory of
Philip Augustus, alone, over a coalition of foreign princes; the victory
was the work of king and people, barons, knights, burghers, and peasants
of Ile-de-France, of Orleanness, of Picardy, of Normandy, of Champagne,
and of Burgundy. And this union of different classes and different
populations in a sentiment, a contest, and a triumph shared in common was
a decisive step in the organization and unity of France. The victory of
Bouvines marked the commencement of the time at which men might speak,
and indeed did speak, by one single name, of the French. The nation in
France and the kingship in France on that day rose out of and above the
feudal system.

Philip Augustus was about the same time apprised of his son Louis's
success on the banks of the Loire. The incapacity and swaggering
insolence of King John had made all his Poitevine allies disgusted with
him; he had been obliged to abandon his attack upon the King of France in
the provinces, and the insurrection, growing daily more serious, of the
English barons and clergy for the purpose of obtaining Magna Charta was
preparing for him other reverses. He had ceased to be a dangerous rival
to Philip.

No period has had better reason than our own to know how successes and
conquests can intoxicate warlike kings; but Philip, whose valor, on
occasion, was second to none, had no actual inclination towards war or
towards conquest for the sole pleasure of extending his dominion.
"Liking better, according to his custom," says William the Breton, "to
conquer by peace than by war," he hasted to put an end by treaties,
truces, or contracts to his quarrels with King John, the Count of
Flanders, and the principal lords made prisoners at Bouvines; discretion,
in his case, was proof against the temptations of circumstances, or the
promptings of passion, and he took care not to overtly compromise his
power, his responsibility, and the honor of his name by enterprises which
did not naturally come in his way, or which he considered without chances
of success. Whilst still a youth, he had given, in 1191, a sure proof of
that self-command which is so rare amongst ambitious princes by
withdrawing from the crusade in which he had been engaged with Richard
Coeur de Lion; and it was still more apparent in two great events at the
latter end of his reign--the crusade against the Albige