im. In the first course that was run
the count shattered his spear against the shield of Jacques, who raised
his own weapon and passed without touching his adversary. This
complaisance displeased the duke, who sent word to the knight that if he
proposed to play with his adversary he had better withdraw at once. They
ran again. This time both splintered their spears, and both kept their
seats, much to the delight of Duke Philip.

On the next day the grand tourney came off. To behold it there were
present no less than two hundred and twenty-five princes, barons,
knights, and squires. That day the youthful Count de Charolais
acquitted himself nobly, breaking eighteen spears,--and possibly some
bones of his antagonists. He carried off the prize, which was bestowed
upon him by the ladies of his father's court, and Duke Philip gloried in
the prowess of his son.

With that tournament ended the record of the single combats of Jacques
de Lelaing. War followed, the duke and his robber barons fighting
against the rich cities of Belgium, and spoiling many of them. In those
wars Sir Jacques took part. At length, in June, 1453, siege was being
made against the Chateau de Pouckes, a stronghold against whose walls
the Burgundians plied a great piece of artillery, an arm which was then
only fairly coming into use. Behind this stood Sir Jacques, with a
number of other nobles, to watch the effect of the shot. Just then came
whizzing through the air a stone bullet, shot from a culverin on the
walls of the castle, the artillerist being a young man of Ghent, son of
Henry the Blindman. This stone struck Sir Jacques on the forehead and
carried away the upper half of his head, stretching him dead on the
field. He was yet a young man when death thus came to him. Only eight
years before he had made his first appearance in the lists, at Nancy.

Philip the Good was infuriated when he heard of the loss of his favorite
knight. He vowed that when the Chateau was taken every soul in it should
be hung from the walls. He kept his word, too, with a few exceptions,
these being some priests, a leprous soldier, and a couple of boys. One
of these lads made his way in all haste to Ghent, and not until well out
of reach of the _good_ Philip did he reveal the truth, that it was his
hand which had fired the fatal shot.

And so ended the life of our worthy knight-errant, the prize-fighter of
an earlier day than ours, the main difference between past and present