im by arms. Louis answered that, for his own part, he had
scrupulously observed the truce, and had no idea of breaking it; but he
considered that he had a perfect right to punish a rebellious vassal. In
this young King of France, this docile son of an able mother, none knew
what a hero there was, until he revealed himself on a sudden. Near two
towns of Saintonge, Taillebourg and Saintes, at a bridge which covered
the approaches of one and in front of the walls of the other, Louis, on
the 21st and 22d of July, delivered two battles, in which the brilliancy
of his personal valor and the affectionate enthusiasm he excited in his
troops secured victory and the surrender of the two places. "At sight of
the numerous banners, above which rose the oriflamme, close to
Taillebourg, and of such a multitude of tents, one pressing against
another and forming as it were a large and populous city, the King of
England turned sharply to the Count of La Marche, saying, 'My father, is
this what you did promise me? Is yonder the numerous chivalry that you
did engage to raise for me, when you said that all I should have to do
would be to get money together?' 'That did I never say,' answered the
count. 'Yea, verily,' rejoined Richard, Earl of Cornwall, brother of
Henry III.: 'for yonder I have amongst my baggage writing of your own to
such purport.' And when the Count of La Marche energetically denied that
he had ever signed or sent such writing, Henry III. reminded him bitterly
of the messages he had sent to England, and of his urgent exhortations to
war. 'It was never done with my consent,' cried the Count of La Marche,
with an oath; 'put the blame of it upon your mother, who is my wife; for,
by the gullet of God, it was all devised without my knowledge.'"

It was not Henry III. alone who was disgusted with the war in which his
mother had involved him; the majority of the English lords who had
accompanied him left him, and asked the King of France for permission to
pass through his kingdom on their way home. There were those who would
have dissuaded Louis from compliance; but, "Let them go," said he;
"I would ask nothing better than that all my foes should thus depart
forever far away from my abode." Those about him made merry over Henry
III., a refugee at Bordeaux, deserted by the English and plundered by the
Gascons. "Hold! hold! said Louis; "turn him not into ridicule, and make
me not hated of him by reason of your banter; his