w words upon a scrap of parchment dyed with blood;
and that was the first account Philip the Handsome received of the battle
of Courtrai, which was fought and lost on the 11th of July, 1302.

The news of this great defeat of the French spread rapidly throughout
Europe, and filled with joy all those who were hostile to or jealous of
Philip the Handsome. The Flemings celebrated their victory with
splendor, and rewarded with bounteous gifts their burgher heroes, Peter
Deconing amongst others, and those of their neighbors who had brought
them aid. Philip, greatly affected and a little alarmed, sent for his
prisoner, the aged Guy de Dampierre, and loaded him with reproaches, as
if he had to thank him for the calamity; and, forthwith levying a fresh
army, "as numerous," say the chroniclers, "as the grains of sand on the
borders of the sea from Propontis to the Ocean," he took up a position at
Arras, and even advanced quite close to Douai; but he was of those in
whom obstinacy does not extinguish prudence, and who, persevering all the
while in their purposes, have wit to understand the difficulties and
clangers of them. Instead of immediately resuming the war, he entered
into negotiations with the Flemings; and their envoys met him in a ruined
church beneath the walls of Douai. John of Chalons, one of Philip's
envoys, demanded, in his name, that the king should be recognized as lord
of all Flanders, and authorized to punish the insurrection of Bruges,
with a promise, however, to spare the lives of all who had taken part in
it. "How!" said a Fleming, Baldwin de Paperode; "our lives would be left
us, but only after our goods had been pillaged and our limbs subjected to
every torture!" "Sir Castellan," answered John of Chalons, "why speak
you so? A choice must needs be made; for the king is determined to lose
his crown rather than not be avenged." Another Fleming, John de Renesse,
who, leaning on the broken altar, had hitherto kept silence, cried,
"Since so it is, let answer be made to the king that we be come hither to
fight him, and not to deliver up to him our fellow-citizens;" and the
Flemish envoys withdrew. Still Philip did not give up negotiating, for
the purpose of gaining time and of letting the edge wear off the
Flemings' confidence. He returned to Paris, fetched Guy de Dampierre
from the tower of the Louvre, and charged him to go and negotiate peace
under a promise of returning to his prison if he were unsucces