into the field. Philip's Fabian policy was obviously a wise one. While Edward was advancing further and further from his supports, with gradually diminishing numbers, the French king was collecting and multiplying his forces with the intention of crushing with one blow his adventurous enemy. When, however, week after week had passed away and Philip still refused battle, the danger of the isolated position of the English army became painfully apparent, and Edward determined to withdraw northwards. But just as an animal retreats when a beast he fears faces him, and follows at his heels the instant he turns his back, so the French were no sooner aware that the English were retiring than they marched in pursuit.

Philip, unable to wade through, was compelled to return to the bridge at Abbeville.

Meanwhile Edward continued his advance, and on the 24th August, 1346, he took up a position "sub foresta de Cressy.' On the morning of the 26th the van of the French army appeared in sight, way worn and weary. The English, on the contrary, had been refreshed by rest, and were occupying a vantage ground in the raised open field. There the army stood divided into three divisions, the centre commanded by the Black Prince, the left by the Earls of Arundel and, Northampton, and the right by the king. The French advanced to the attack in some confusion, which was increased by the hasty retreat of the advance guard, consisting of Genoese bowIt was now Edward's turn to avoid men. The flight of these mercenaries battle, and with all possible expedition he threw the rear ranks into temporary dismoved towards the river Somme. But on order; but recovering their formation, arriving at the southern bank he found all they directed their main attack on the the bridges either destroyed or guarded, central division. For a time this part of and the fords strongly fortified against the English position was in considerable him. His position was now one of immi-danger, and the Black Prince at one juncnent peril. In his rear were the advancing ture found it necessary to apply to his forces of Philip, numbering one hundred thousand men, and in front was the broad stream of the Somme, which was unguarded only where it was supposed to be impassable. It so chanced, however, that a peasant named Gobin Agace offered for a reward to show the king a place in the estuary of the river where, at low tide, a crossing might be effected. Thither the king went, but was disappointed to find a considerable force in occupation of the northern shore. This was one of those Occasions when the only choice lies between evils. To have hesitated_would have been to have been lost, and Edward determined to run the lesser risk of forcing a passage. At the head of his troops he plunged into the water, and, after a desperate encounter in the stream, which was afterwards maintained on the northern bank, he defeated the enemy, and brought his army across in safety. When told of this defeat, Philip uttered the exclamation the latest echo of which has scarcely died out from our ears, "We are betrayed." With a certain resemblance in the later details, which justified the old historians in likening Edward's crossing of the Somme to the passage of the children of Israel over the Red Sea, no sooner had the feet of the last English soldier touched the northern shore than the vanguard of Philip's army appeared on the southern bank. The tide also, which had ebbed when Edward fought his way through the stream, was then flowing to the flood, and

.

father for succor. A detachment of knights supplied the required help, and after many hours' desperate fighting the French were completely routed. Horse and foot fled in the wildest confusion, and the English were left masters of the field. It is said that for the first time in European history cannons were used in this battle, and that the victory of the English was partly to be attributed to the employment of these weapons. But even the skies fought in their favor. At the outset of the battle a sudden storm of rain raged over the field, rendering the bowstrings of the Genoese useless, while the covered bows of the English escaped all injury. Against these influences even the sacred oriflamme, which, since its first use as a national banner in 1119, had invariably turned back the adverse tide of war, fluttered in vain over the French hosts. Philip filed with his discomfited soldiers, but not all those who fought under his banners were so careful of their safety. When the blind king of Bohemia was told that all was lost, he ordered two squires to fasten their bridles to his own, and to lead him into the thickest of the fight. Loyally they obeyed his commands, and the three fell dead fighting fiercely. After several vicissitudes, the body of the gallant king found its way into a private museum at Treves, from which degraded position it was rescued by the king of Prussia in 1872, and deposited at Castel, near Saarburg, where it now lies.

From the victorious field of Crecy, Ed

ward advanced to the siege of Calais. | thereon should not be wet past the knees, The town was far too strong to be taken it being made for the use of fishers." by assault, and the more wearisome measure of starving out the garrison had to be resorted to. So long as endurance was possible, the commandant held out; but the time came when he was compelled to yield, and even to accept the condition, which has been presented on thousands of canvases, that six of the principal burgesses should come to Edward's camp carrying the keys of the city in their hands, bareheaded and barefooted, and with ropes about their necks.

scenery, the fertility of the soil, the happy | sions of the English army, while the industry of the people, and the quiet pros- prince's division was posted on a hill on perity of the towns. In this favored re- the right front. The first division was gion nature has been lavish with her gifts. drawn up on the slope of the hill and on The choicest fruits and flowers grow in the left, the third division was posted almost tropical profusion, and corn yields within reach of a gap in the upper part of abundant harvests to the farmers. Such the hedge. Baker's mention of this gap was also the state of the duchy when the is important, and explains the commonly Black Prince landed at Bordeaux, and ad- accepted error that the battle was a mere vanced inland to fulfil his commission. In struggle in a deep lane. those days armies marched without com- The French attack opened with the admissariat and without hospitals. War was vance of the cavalry, a division of which made to support war with a vengeance, made for the gap, with the intention of and the Black Prince probably did only taking Warwick in rear. There, however, what every commander similarly placed it was confronted by Salisbury's troops, would have done, when he burned and de- and was compelled to retreat before the stroyed cities, and laid waste whole dis- arrows of the English bowmen. On the tricts which had formerly blossomed as repulse of the cavalry, the dauphin's divithe rose. Mr. Thompson has for the first sion was ordered to attack. "Apparatus time successfully traced the line of march | hujus aciei," says Baker, "fuit terribilior pursued on this inroad, and the frequency atque veemencior quam facies belli primiof such entries as "three neighboring tus repressi." With shouts of "St. Denis towns burnt," "capture and destruction of Galiax," "Plaisance burnt," etc., makes us content ourselves with the statement that the army marched from Bordeaux to Narbonne on the Gulf of Lions and back. The spoils accumulated were enormous, full license having been given to the soldiers to take what they could keep.

Flushed with victory, the prince determined to march across France to join the king, and for a time there appeared to be every probability of his being able to carry out his intention. Without encountering any serious opposition, he advanced as far as the Loire, where he learnt that King John of France was marching to oppose him with a force of sixty thousand men. To have encountered such an army with his small following of seven thousand men, in the midst of an enemy's country, would have been an act of madness, and he therefore purposed to retreat with all speed to Guienne. But the rapidity of John's movements defeated the plan. For three days the two armies marched southwards on converging lines, and came within striking distance in the neighborhood of Poitiers.

A battle having just become inevitable, the Black Prince drew up his army in array on the 19th September, 1356. "The vaward of the armie he committed to the Earles of Warwicke and Oxford, the middle was guided by the prince, and the rereward was led by the Earles of Salisburie and Suffolke." A long hedge and ditch which skirted the plateau where the English were posted, and followed the slope of the hill into the valley below, separated the French from the first and third divi

At

for us!" they charged against the English
ranks with a weight and fierceness which
for a moment shook the English line.
Hand to hand and steel to steel the men
on both sides fought desperately.
length the Frenchmen began to waver,
and finally turned and ran, pursued by the
English, who "slue them like as the wolves
chase and kill sheep." According to the
French historians, this rout was
66 non fu-
gam sed pulchram retraccionem!"

The discomfiture of the dauphin's division seems to have exercised so terrifying an influence on the division commanded by the Duke of Orleans that it was never engaged, and marched off the field without striking a blow. But it was otherwise with the troops commanded by the king. Having bound himself by an oath that he would not leave the field unless he were taken or slain, he led his men against the English, who, having already sustained an unequal contest for hours, were faint and weary with the strife. Manfully, however, they met the onslaught of the enemy, and though the advantage of both numbers and condition was in favor of the French, the sturdy valor of the English prevailed.

Then bestirreth himself the worthy Prince of Wales, cutting and hewing the Frenchmen with a sharpe sword [and] at length thrusteth thorow the throngs of them that guarded the French king. Then should you see an antient beginne to nod and stumble, the bearers of them to fall downe: the blood of slaves and princes ran mingled together into the waters which were nigh. In like manner the bore of Cornewall rageth, who seeketh to have none other way to the French king's standard than by blood onely: but, when they were come

there, they met with a company of stoute men | there had come, one evening, for an hour, to withstand them. The Englishmen fight, the lady of his dream. Unexpectedly; the Frenchmen also lay on, but at length, suddenly. She had drawn her chair, by Fortune making haste to turne her wheele, his own, to the fire. They had sat tothe prince preaseth forward on his enemies, gether so; and he had been happy. She and, like a fierce lion beating downe the proud, he came to the yeelding up of the had given him his tea; had opened his French king. piano; had played a while, Xaver Scharwenka's wild music; had kissed him once; and had gone away.

With the king was taken his son, and a host also of knights and nobles. Of the rest, twenty-eight hundred men were slain, and the remainder were scattered in flight. Thus was inflicted on the French a defeat to which, for completeness and for the consequences arising from it, Waterloo and Sedan are alone comparable. Loaded with honors, the Black Prince, with "those few, those happy few" who had shared in his triumph, returned to Bordeaux, from which port he sailed with his captives to England.

Perhaps his years before and after had seemed at times two deserts, divided by that living stream which was her momentary presence. Or perhaps there was an outstretched darkness on one side of the heavens; then a star; then again outstretched darkness-the life of the shop and the suburb.

99 66

- not

Richard Pelse was one of those poor men who are born cultivated; one of the cultivated who are born poor. You had only to look at him now, across the counHere Baker's chronicle comes to an ter and the ranged tooth-powder pots -- to end, and there could not be found a more see the clear-cut head, against its backfitting closing scene to a historical drama ground of dry drug jars and Latin-labelled than the account of so signal a victory. drawers "Alumens " "Flor: Sul;" But the interest attaching to the chronicle" Pot: Bitar; Cap: Papav" to know is not confined to its record of political that he was individual. A sympathetic crises and striking incidents. It takes the spectator might call him original; an unreader behind the scenes. It initiates sympathetic, eccentric. What fires burnt him into the secret springs of court in- in the brownness of his quick, keen, resttrigues and councils. It discovers to him less eyes? What had left his facethe true motives of political adventurers yet really old-topped with a mass of and of meddling ecclesiastics; and it silvery-white hair? There were the deliechoes in his ears the pæans of triumph cate features, decisive and refined; the from many a hard-fought field. Succeed- nose aquiline, the kindly mouth with nering historians have drawn largely on its vous movement at its corners. And, again, pages for the principal events of the pe- the hands, thin and white and long; riod; but they have too often passed un- with fingers and thumbs turning back heeded by those details and light touches prodigiously; flexible, subtle, sensitive. which are essential to the right under- And the spare figure, still quite straight, standing of history. These are carefully dressed in the black frock-coat of his busiillustrated by Mr. Thompson, whose notes, ness hours. Original or eccentric; a man which are full and accurate, supply an ef- whom men and women looked at; either fective atmosphere and background to the liked or feared. picture which Baker painted with such vividness and force five hundred years ago.

From The Fortnightly Review.
A CHEMIST IN THE SUBURBS.

I.

At home for years within a stone's throw of the Angel, he had all his life been a Londoner. Energy and diligence he had had from his boyhood, but country color had never come into his cheeks; no robustness of the sea's giving, into his frame. All his pursuits were of the town -and nearly all his recollections. His mother was a widowed little news-agenta withered woman, once pretty and vivacious who kept, when he was a child and a lad, her news-shop in a by-way, two doors from North Audley Street. His father? He never knew him.

RICHARD PELSE was the chemist. The suburb was near the Angel; at the top of the City Road; on the confines of Islington. There he led his prosaic life -getting old, and a bachelor. But into the prosaic years-years before Islington When he was twelve years old his there had burst once the moment of mother died, and a customer of theirs, a romance. Then his shop was near Ox- druggist of the quarter, took him as 66 useford Street. Into the sitting-room over it | ful boy." Had he ever changed and risen

so far afterwards as to be a famous physician, it would have been told of him, in pride, or as astonishing, that he had been an errand boy only. As it was, he had in fact been that, but something besides. He was so intelligent that gradually he had got into all the work of the shop. He was civil, and comely too. From selling things behind the counter, he was put into the dispensary. He educated himself; he passed his examinations; he became an assistant who was entirely necessary; then he became a partner. At thirty-five he was a prosperous man and alone; the shop's earlier master having retired. For Richard Pelse, before that happened, there had been twenty years of progress, and of self-denial; no doubt of satisfactory, but of unremitting work. Then he allowed himself a holiday, and with a valise by his side and a "Baedeker" in his pocket, started for Switzerland and Savoy.

II.

But that night he reflected on the distance between them. He was no ambitious snob, scheming for marriage in a sphere not his. The distance the distance ! No, there could never be marriage, or, his career must change first. Should he leave to-morrow, and forget the encounter? Should he enjoy her for two days, and forget her then instead, or hug the memory? At all events, he did not go.

And on both sides, in the short two days - prolonged to three and four there was interest and fascination. Perhaps he should have told her father who he was. Instead of it, he told her. There was a recoil then and it might have saved them. Her knowledge of the world and of the convenances — nineteen, but bred in society—was suddenly uppermost. Nothing more could be said to him, and she would mention to her mother as a piece of gossip to be heard and forgotten

as the funny adventure of travelling and of chance acquaintance — that the man was a shopkeeper, a chemist; might have sold her sponges, nail brushes, eau de Cologne. Then the simplicity, the nat

were in her too -came uppermost in their turn. She would tell none of that. She would keep him to herself, for the time at least him and his secret. There was mutual attraction, strong and unquestionable. Elective affinities. And such things had their rights.

MR. PELSE had made more than half his tour and had got over his surprises, the sense of all that was strange, when he found himself, one Sunday, arrived at Aix-uralness, warmth, impulsiveness — which les-Bains for two days' rest, and for the charm of its beauty. He stayed at the Hotel Vénat. Though a tradesman, he had tact as well as education; various interests and real kindliness. He could mix quite easily with "his betters"-found his "betters" much more his equals than his neighbors had been. At the Vénat, an argument with an English chaplain brought him into contact with a family of three-Colonel Image, a military politician, very well connected, and busy in the House; and his wife, who was above all things fashionable; and his daughter, who was blonde and nineteen.

Richard Pelse must certainly then, with all his earlier deficiencies and disadvantages, have been picturesque, and almost elegant, as well as interesting. The impulsive Miss Image found him so. In the garden, from his ground-floor bedroom, there had been a vision of a tall white figure, of floating muslin, of pale colored hair. Nearer, there were seen dancing eyes, large and grey, and a mouth that was Cupid's bow. At table d'hôte there was beard the voice that he liked best, and liked at once. A voice? Hardly. An instrument of music. You listened to it as to a well-used violin.

In the drawing-room he got into talk with her. Was she not, unexpectedly, the ideal realized? — the lady of the dream of all his youth.

Wilful and independent - it seemed so then she laid herself out to be with him. Mrs. Image was indolent, physically. In the morning the military politician was wont to wait in the ante-chamber of a man of science who was great on the healing waters; later in the day he was borne from the bath house, closely muffled, in a curtained chair, and put to bed till dinner time at the hotel. He was not seriously ill, however, and the treatment, which had begun a fortnight before Richard Pelse's arrival, would now soon be over. Anyhow their opportunities were numbered. There was an end to meetings. chance meetings, after all, though wished for on both sides at noon, under the shade of the grouped trees in a sun-smitten park encircled by the mountains; at night, amid the soft illuminations of the Villa des Fleurs, whither Miss Image was chaperoned; again at breakfast time, when al most from the open windows of the hotel could be discerned, here and there, between luxuriant foliage, gold and green – beyond the richness of walnut and chestnut branch, beyond the vines, beyond the