tongue, one Peter Deconing, became the leader of revolt in Bruges;
accomplices flocked to him from nearly all the towns of Flanders; and he
found allies amongst their neighbors. In 1302 war again broke out; but
it was no longer a war between Philip the Handsome and Guy de Dampierre:
it was a war between the Flemish communes and their foreign oppressors.
Everywhere resounded the cry of insurrection: "Our bucklers and our
friends for the lion of Flanders! Death to all Walloons! "Philip the
Handsome precipitately levied an army of sixty thousand men, says
Villani, and gave the command of it to Count Robert of Artois, the hero
of Furnes. The forces of the Flemings amounted to no more than twenty
thousand fighting men. The two armies met near Courtrai. The French
chivalry were full of ardor and confidence; and the Italian archers in
their service began the attack with some success. My lord," said one of
his knights to the Count of Artois, "these knaves will do so well that
they will gain the honor of the day; and, if they alone put an end to the
war, what will be left for the noblesse to do?" "Attack, then!"
answered the prince. Two grand attacks succeeded one another; the first
under the orders of the Constable Raoul of Nesle, the second under those
of the Count of Artois in person. After two hours' fighting, both failed
against the fiery national passion of the Flemish communes, and the two
French leaders, the Constable and the Count of Artois, were left, both of
them, lying on the field of battle amidst twelve or fifteen thousand of
their dead. "I yield me! I yield me!" cried the Count of Artois; but,
"We understand not thy lingo," ironically answered in their own tongue
the Flemings who surrounded him; and he was forthwith put to the sword.
Too late to save him galloped up a noble ally of the insurgents, Guy of
Namur. "From the top of the towers of our monastery," says the Abbot of
St. Martin's of Tournai, "we could see the French flying over the roads,
across fields and through hedges, in such numbers that the sight must
have been seen to be believed. There were in the outskirts of our town
and in the neighboring villages, so vast a multitude of knights and men-
at-arms tormented with hunger, that it was a matter horrible to see.
They gave their arms to get bread."

[Illustration: The Battle of Courtrai----167]

A French knight, covered with wounds, whose name has remained unknown,
hastily scratched a fe