otion threw aside all cold calculations of
reason. Every fortress on the way was in the hands of enemies; hostile
armies were pressing in on every side; the roads were held by foreign
troops,--French and Poitevin, Flemish mercenaries and Breton rebels--as
the stricken king rode through the forests and along the trackways he
had learned to know as a hunter in earlier days. Never had his indomitable
will, his romantic daring, been so great as in this last desperate ride to
reach the home of his race. He started on the 13th of June. Before the end
of the month Geoffrey had hurried back from Normandy, and together they
went to Chinon.

Henry was now shut in on every side. Poitou and Britanny were both in
revolt. The forts along the Sarthe, the Loir, and the Loire had fallen
into the hands of Philip. On the 30th of June his army was seen under
the walls of Tours. Henry himself was on the same day suddenly struck
down by fever; unable to meet the French king, he fell back down the
river to Saumur. The great French princes, aghast at the swift catastrophe
which had fallen, men scarcely knew how, on the Angevin king, trembling
lest in this strange victory of the French monarchy his ruin should be the
beginning of their own destruction, made a last effort for peace. But
Philip stood firm, "seeing that God had delivered his enemy into his
hand." On Monday, the 3d of July, the walls of Tours fell before his
assault, and he sent a final summons to Henry to meet him at Colombieres,
a field near Tours. The king travelled as far as the house of the Templars
at Ballan. But there he was seized with intolerable agony in every nerve
of his body from head to foot. Leaning for support against a wall in his
extreme anguish, he called to him William the marshal, and the pitying
bystanders laid him on a bed. News of his illness was carried to the
French camp. But Richard felt no touch of pity. His father was but
feigning some excuse to put off the meeting, he told Philip; and a
message was sent back commanding him to appear on the next day. The sick
king again called the marshal, and prayed him at whatever labour to carry
him to the conference. "Cost what it may," he vowed, "I will grant
whatever they ask to get them to depart. But this I tell you of a surety,
if I can but live I will heal the country from war, and win my land back
again." With a final effort of his indomitable will he rode on the 4th of
July through the sultry summer heat to C