d very
often botched horribly.

(5) In this particular campaign he is particularly haphazard. Thus,
upon the all-important point of the order in which the various
crossings of the Somme were attempted, he gets them at sixes and
sevens, describing the first last and the last first. He was a man
always attending to picturesqueness of incident, and one who thought
exactitude very negligible.

Those are the five points which weaken any positive evidence which
Froissart may give. But it is the evidence independent of Froissart,
and of his accuracy or inaccuracy, which is so overwhelming.

(1) Oisemont lies actually ten miles _back_ from Abbeville upon the
line of the retreat. To occupy Oisemont was to incur a deliberate
running into that danger which it was all Edward's effort to avoid.

(2) We know, as a matter of fact, that Philip, the King of France,
was before the night of the 23rd abreast of Abbeville; a retreat upon
Oisemont would therefore have been physically impossible to Edward.

(3) Oisemont would have involved keeping in touch with bodies ten,
twelve, fifteen, and twenty miles distant, even if Oisemont had been
occupied for two days, whereas the only mention we have of that
occupation represents it as taking place on the 23rd.

These three points render it, as to two of them morally impossible,
as to one of them physically, that Edward could have been at Oisemont
upon that night. But they are negative: we have positive points which
clinch the whole matter. These are:--

(1) Edward marched with his _whole_ army to the ford or it could not
all have crossed, therefore it was concentrated before he marched.
The march was a very short one. Even Froissart says that "he started
at the break of day" and reached the ford "a little after sunrise."
It must also have been short because we know as a matter of positive
history that the soldiers who took that morning march waited some
time for the tide to ebb, _then_ fought a sharp and successful action
upon the northern bank of the river, and again on the same day
stormed certainly one and possibly two defended places: also that
their total march before the night, and beyond the river, was quite
ten miles, including the actions just mentioned.

(2) We also know that there was an assault on St