e could not debar them from it After this fruitless
negotiation, there ensued an action between the French and English
cavalry at Fretteval, in which the former were routed, and the king of
France's cartulary and records, which commonly at that time attended his
person, were taken. But this victory leading to no important advantages,
a truce for a year was at last, from mutual weakness, concluded between
the two monarchs.

During this war, Prince John deserted from Philip, threw himself at his
brother's feet, craved pardon for his offences, and by the intercession
of Queen Eleanor was received into favor. "I forgive him," said the
king, "and hope I shall as easily forget his injuries as he will my
pardon." John was incapable even of returning to his duty without
committing a baseness. Before he left Philip's party, he invited to
dinner all the officers of the garrison which that prince had placed in
the citadel of Evreux; he massacred them during the entertainment; fell,
with the assistance of the townsmen, on the garrison, whom he put to the
sword; and then delivered up the place to his brother.

The king of France was the great object of Richard's resentment and
animosity. The conduct of John, as well as that of the emperor and duke
of Austria, had been so base, and was exposed to such general odium and
reproach, that the king deemed himself sufficiently revenged for
their injuries; and he seems never to have entertained any project of
vengeance against any of them. The duke of Austria, about this time,
having crushed his leg by the fall of his horse at a tournament, was
thrown into a fever; and being struck, on the approaches of death, with
remorse for his injustice to Richard, he ordered by will all the English
hostages in his hands to be set at liberty and the remainder of the debt
due to him to be remitted: his son, who seemed inclined to disobey these
orders, was constrained by his ecclesiastics to execute them.[*] {1195.}
The emperor also made advances for Richard's friendship, and offered to
give him a discharge of all the debt not yet paid to him, provided he
would enter into an offensive alliance against the king of France; a
proposal which was very acceptable to Richard, and was greedily embraced
by him. The treaty with the emperor took no effect; but it served to
rekindle the war between France and England before the expiration of the
truce.

[* Rymer, vol. i. p. 88, 102.]

This war was not disting