A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [101]
His trumpets sounded, and their echo, thrown back by the stone walls of Poitiers, rang through the woods “so that you would think the hills had called out to the valleys and that it had thundered in the clouds.” The English charge, in whole or in part on horseback, rushed down upon the King’s unit “like the wild boar of Cornwall.” The battle reached climactic fury “and none so hardy” wrote Chandos Herald, “whose heart was not dismayed.” “Beware, Father, to the right! Ware, to the left!” Philip cried as the blows descended. Knights grappled in personal combat, “each thinking of his own honor.” Attacked by the Prince’s charge in front and the Captal’s horsemen from the rear, the French fought in ferocious despair. Bleeding from multiple wounds, Geoffrey de Charny was cut down and killed still holding the Oriflamme. The King’s guard, surrounding him in a mighty wedge, tottered under the assault. “Some, eviscerated, tread on their own entrails, others vomit forth their teeth, some still standing have their arms cut off. The dying roll about in the blood of strangers, the fallen bodies groan, and the proud spirits, abandoning their inert bodies, moan horribly.” The slain piled up around the flailing battle-ax of the King, who with his helmet knocked off was bleeding from two wounds on his face. “Yield, yield,” cried voices, “or you are a dead man!” In the midst of hoarse shouts and fierce contention to seize him, a French exile, Denis de Morbecque, banished for manslaughter and now serving the English, pressed forward and said, “Sire, I am a knight of Artois. Yield yourself to me and I will lead you to the Prince of Wales.” King Jean handed him his glove and surrendered.
With the loss of the King, the remaining French forces disintegrated, those who could flying for the gates of Poitiers to escape capture. English and Gascons of all ranks pursued wildly, greed overmastering exhaustion, and scrambled for prisoners under the very walls of the city. Some of the French turned in flight and captured their pursuers.
The defeat swept France of its leadership. In addition to the King, the Constable and both Marshals, and the bearer of the Oriflamme, who were either dead or taken, the victors captured one fighting archbishop, 13 counts, 5 viscounts, 21 barons and bannerets, and some 2,000 knights, squires, and men-at-arms of the gentry. Too many to be taken back, most were released on a pledge to bring their ransoms to Bordeaux before Christmas.
The number of killed, a different figure in every account, was at least several thousand, of whom 2,426 were of the nobility. The fact that they equaled or outnumbered the captured was evidence of valiant fighting, but, unfortunately for France, the living who fled made a greater impression than the dead who fought. The Grand Chronique admits openly that battalions “fled shamefully and cravenly,” and the Chronique Normande somberly concludes, “The mortality of this battle was not so great as the shame.”
That was the great debris of Poitiers. Citizens watching from the city walls witnessed inglorious retirement and hectic flight, and their report spread throughout France. The retreat of Orléans’ battalion which lost the day is hardly explicable except by the disaffected mood of nobles antagonized by the King. Certainly many were present that day who would not have grieved at misfortune to the monarchy, and it would have taken the shouts of only a few to induce