ng at ten miles a day was most
accurately maintained.

Now from his camp in front of Tours, Edward behaved in a fashion singular
even for the unbusinesslike warfare of that somewhat theatrical
generation. He sat down, apparently undecided which way to turn, and
remained in that posture during the remainder of September the 8th, all
the next day, September 9th, and all the next day again, the 10th. There
could be no question of attacking Tours. It was a strong, large, and
well-defended town, and quite beyond the power of the Black Prince's
force, which was by this time encumbered with a very heavy train of
waggons carrying his booty. But while he was waiting there (and he could
see, says one account, the fires of his brother's army by night beyond the
Loire), his enemy, with such forces as he had been able to collect, was
marching down upon him.

The King of France had begun to get men together at Chartres upon the same
day that his rival had reached Vierzon, the 28th of August. Five days
later, just when Romorantin Castle was surrendering, he had broken up and
was marching to the Loire. And upon the same 8th of September which saw
the Black Prince pitch his tents under the walls of Tours, the first
bodies of the French command were beginning to cross the Loire at the two
upper points of Meung and Blois, while some of them were preparing to
cross at Tours itself.

Yet so defective was Edward's information that it was not until Sunday,
September 11th, that news reached him of King John's movements. He heard
upon that day that the French king himself had crossed at Blois, thirty
miles up river behind him. Edward at once broke camp and started on his
retreat to the south. After him as he went followed the French host, which
had combined its forces after its separate passages of the river.

It is important, if we are to understand what follows, to appreciate both
the quality and the numbers of those whom the King of France had been able
to gather. He had with him, by the still necessary and fatal military
weakness of French society, only those loose feudal levies whose lack of
cohesion had accounted ten years before for the disaster of Crecy. But
John commanded no such host as Philip had nominally led in the Picardy
Campaign against Edward III. At the most, and counting all his command, it
was little if at all superior in numbers to that of the Black Prince. He
hoped, indeed, to increase it somewhat with further levies as