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survivors had but little leisure to lament them. It is not easy to read Froissart's account of certain battles, serious enough in their results, without being strangely impressed by the boyish enthusiasm with which the combatants went to work; so that even now, five centuries later, our blood tingles with their pleasurable excitement. When France undertook to support the Earl of Flanders against Philip van Arteveld and the rebellious citizens of Ghent, the Flemish army entrenched themselves in a strong position on the river Lys, destroying all bridges save one, which was closely guarded. The French, in the dead of night, crossed the river in rickety little boats, a handful of men at a time, and only a mile or so distant from the spot where nine thousand of the enemy lay encamped. Apparently they regarded this hazardous feat as the gayest kind of a lark, crowding like schoolboys around the boats, and begging to be taken on board. "It was a pleasure to see with what eagerness they embarked," says the historian; and indeed, so great was the emulation, that only men of noble birth and tried valor were permitted to cross. Not a single varlet accom-