remote from
the Miausson, where Salisbury's command lay, the hedge was broken by a
gap through which a farmer's track connected the fields on each side of
it. The first fighting began when the English sent a small force of
horsemen through the gap to engage with the French cavalry beyond.
While Audrehem, on the French right, suspended his attack to watch the
result, Clermont made his way straight for the gap, hoping to take
Salisbury's division, on the upper or right-hand station, in flank.
Before he reached the gap, however, he found the hedge and the
approaches to the cart-road held in force by the English archers.
Meanwhile the mail-clad men and horses of Audrehem's cavalry had
approached dangerously near the left of the English line, where Warwick
was stationed. Their complete armour made riders and steeds alike
impervious to the English arrows, until the prince, seeing from his
hill how things were proceeding, ordered some archers to station
themselves on the marshy ground near the Miausson, in advance of the
left flank of the English army. From this position they shot at the
unprotected parts of the French horses, and drove the little band of
cavalry from the field. By that time Clermon's attack on the gap had
been defeated, and so both sections of the first French division
retired.

Then came the stronger "battle" of the eldest son of the French king.
The fight grew more fierce, and for a long time the issue remained
doubtful. The English archers exhausted their arrows to little purpose,
and the dismounted French men-at-arms, offering a less sure mark than
the horsemen, forced their way to the English ranks and fought a
desperate hand-to-hand conflict with them. At last the Duke of
Normandy's followers were driven back. Thereupon a panic seized the
division commanded by the Duke of Orleans, which fled from the field
without measuring swords with the enemy. The victors themselves were in
a desperate plight. Many were wounded, and all were weary, especially
the men-at-arms encased in heavy plate mail. The flight of Orleans gave
them a short respite: but they soon had to face the assault of the rear
battle of the enemy, gallantly led by the king. "No battle," we are
told, "ever lasted so long. In former fights men knew, by the time that
the fourth or the sixth arrow had been discharged, on which side victory
was to be. But here a single archer shot with coolness a hundred arrows,
and still neither side gave way."[1