lly hostile to the southern cause and to the
claim of the Plantagenets. Whether news of the ravaging and burning to the
eastward had affected these peasants or no, we are certain that they would
give the Anglo-Gascon force nothing but misleading information. The
scouting, a perpetual weakness in mediaeval warfare, was imperfect; and
even had it been better organised, to scout rearwards is not the same
thing as scouting on an advance or on the flanks. At any rate, he took it
for granted that there was no further need for haste, that he had
outmarched the French king, and that the remainder of the retreat might
be taken at his own pleasure. It must further be noted that there was a
frailty in the Black Prince's leading which was more than once discovered
in his various campaigns, and which he only retrieved by his admirable
tactical sense whenever he was compelled to a decision. This frailty
consisted, as might be guessed of so headstrong a rider, in trying to get
too much out of his troops in a forced march, and paying for it upon the
morrow of such efforts by expensive delays which more than counterbalanced
its value. He relied too much upon the very large proportion of mounted
men which formed the bulk of his small force. He forgot the limitations of
his few foot-soldiers and the strain that a too-rapid advance put upon his
heavy and cumbersome train of waggons, laden with a heavier and heavier
booty as his raid proceeded.

He stayed in Chatellerault recruiting the strength of his mounts and men
for two whole days. He passed the Thursday and the Friday there without
moving, and it was not until the Saturday morning that he set out from the
town, crossed the Clain, and engaged himself within the triangle between
the two rivers.

The land through which he marched upon that Saturday morning had been the
scene of a much more famous and more decisive feat of arms; for it was
there, just north of the forest of Mouliere, that Charles Martel six
hundred years before had overthrown the Mahommedans and saved Europe for
ever.

So he went forward under the morning, making south in a retreat which he
believed to be unthreatened.

Meanwhile, John, at the head of the French army, was pursuing a
better-thought-out strategical plan, whose complexity has only puzzled
historians because they have not weighed all the factors of the military
situation.

We do not know what numbers the King of France disposed of during this,
the first