nce like a boar-spear, or a knotted stick pointed with
iron, and called in Flemish a "good day." The princes of Juliers and
Namur posted their combatants on the road which leads from Courtrai to
Ghent, behind a canal that communicated with the river Lys. A priest
came with the host, but, there being no time to receive the communion,
each man took some earth in his mouth. The counts then knighted Pierre
Konig and the chiefs of bands, and took their station on foot with the
rest.

The French had nine battalions or divisions, their archers or light
troops being Lombards or Navarrese and Provencals. These the constable
placed foremost, to commence the fight and harass the Flemings by their
missiles. But the Count d'Artois overruled this manoeuvre, and called
it a Lombard trick, reproaching the Constable de Nesle with appreciating
the Flemings too highly because of his connection with them. (He had
married a daughter of the Count of Flanders.) "If you advance as far as
I shall," replied the Count, "you will go far enough, I warrant." So
saying he put spurs to his horse and led on his knights; on which the
Count d'Artois and the French squadrons charged also. This formidable
cavalry could not reach the Flemings, but fell one over the other into
the canal, which they had not perceived, and which was five fathoms wide
and three deep. The Flemish counts, seeing the disorder, instantly
passed the canal on either side to take advantage of it, and fell on the
discomfited French. The battle was but a massacre. Numbers of the French
nobles perished--the Count d'Artois, Godfrey of Brabant and his son,
the counts of Eu and of Albemarle, the Constable and his brother, De
Tanquerville, Pierre Flotte, the Chancellor, and Jacques de St. Pol--in
all some six thousand knights. Louis of Clermont and one or two others
escaped, to the damage of their reputation. This battle of Courtrai was
fought on July 11, 1302.

Had the war not been one exclusively of defence on the part of the
Flemings, or had they had ambitious and adventurous chiefs, such a
disaster might have endangered the throne of France. It was the Flemish
democracy which had conquered, and its chiefs contented themselves with
reducing the remaining cities, and expelling the gentry and rich
citizens as of French inclinations. This reaction extended from Flanders
into Brabant and Hainault. Philip in the mean time exerted all his
activities and resources. Had he been an English king h