eeds down towards the Miosson, which, at this point, makes a bend
upward to meet, as it were, the little valley. A trifle to the south of
the centre of the line there is a break in the uniformity of the ridge,
which comes in the shape of a little dip now occupied by some tile-works;
and on the further, or French, side a corresponding and rather larger
cleft faces it; so that the whole depression has the shape of a long cross
with short arms rather nearer its base than its summit. Just at the end
of the depression, before the ground sinks abruptly down to the river, the
soil is marshy.

Leading towards this position from Poitiers there was and is but one road,
a winding country lane, now in good repair, but until modern times of a
poor surface, and never forming one of the great high roads. The
importance of this unique road will be seen in a moment.

There had once existed, five hundred yards from the right of the Black
Prince's entrenched line, a Roman road, the traces of which can still be
discovered at various parts of its course, but which, even by the time of
Poitiers, had disappeared as a passable way. The only approach remaining,
as I have said, was that irregular lane which formed the connection
between Poitiers and Nouaille.

Now in most terrains where feudal cavalry was concerned, the existence or
non-existence of a road, and its character, would be of little moment in
the immediate neighbourhood of the action: for though a feudal army
depended (as all armies always must) upon roads for its _strategics_, it
was almost independent of them in its _tactics_ upon those open fields
which were characteristic of mediaeval agriculture. The mounted and
armoured men deployed and charged across the stubble. Those who have read
the essay upon the Terrain of Crecy, which preceded this in the present
series, will appreciate that the absence of a road uniting the English and
French positions in that battle was of no significance to the result.

But in the particular case of Poitiers this road, and a certain cart-track
leading off it, must be carefully noted, because between them they
determine all that happened; and the reason of this is that the front of
the English position was covered with _vines_.

The French method of cultivating the vine, and the condition of that
cultivation in the middle of September (in all but a quite exceptionally
early year so far north as Poitou), makes of a vineyard the most complete
natura