t-arms also mounted, cross-bow in hand and
in readiness for battle, was seen advancing to the prince's presence.
Every one was on the tiptoe of expectation as to what would come next.
Then the Count of La Marche addressed himself in a loud voice to the
Count of Poitiers, saying, 'I might have thought, in a moment of
forgetfulness and weakness, to render thee homage; but now I swear to
thee, with a resolute heart, that I will never be thy liegeman; thou dost
unjustly dub thyself my lord; thou didst shamefully filch this countship
from my step-son, Earl Richard, whilst he was faithfully fighting for God
in the Holy Land, and was delivering our captives by his discretion and
his compassion.' After this insolent declaration, the Count of La Marche
violently thrust aside, by means of his men-at-arms, all those who barred
his passage; hasted, by way of parting insult, to fire the lodging
appointed for him by Count Alphonso, and, followed by his people, left
Poitiers at a gallop." (_Histoire de Saint Louis,_ by M. Felix Faure,
t. i. p. 347.)

[Illustration: De la Marche's parting Insult----126]

This meant war; and it burst out at the commencement of the following
spring. It found Louis equally well prepared for it and determined to
carry it through. But in him prudence and justice were as little to seek
as resolution; he respected public opinion, and he wished to have the
approval of those whom he called upon to commit themselves for him and
with him. He summoned the crown's vassals to a parliament; and, "What
think you," he asked them, "should be done to a vassal who would fain
hold land without owning a lord, and who goeth against the fealty and
homage due from him and his predecessors?" The answer was, that the lord
ought in that case to take back the fief as his own property. "As my
name is Louis," said the king, "the Comet of La Marche doth claim to hold
land in such wise, land which hath been a fief of France since the days
of the valiant King Clovis, who won all Aquitaine from King Alaric, a
pagan without faith or creed, and all the country to the Pyrenean mount."
And the barons promised the king their energetic co-operation.

The war was pushed on zealously by both sides. Henry III., King of
England, sent to Louis messengers charged to declare to him that his
reason for breaking the truce concluded between them was, that he
regarded it as his duty towards his step-father, the Count of La Marche,
to defend h