Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Patrician, Vol. 4
About eight o'clock in the morning, an English herald entered the town, who, by the courtesy of the lords of France, had passed through their army he waited on Sir Hugh Calveley in his hotel, and spoke so loud that every one heard him. Herald, whence dost thou come My Lord, ' replied the herald, I come from the French army, where I have seen the finest men at arms, and in such vast numbers that there is not at this day another King who can shew the like.' And these fine men at arms which thou art speaking of, ' saith Sir Hugh, what number are they?' By my faith, my Lord, they are full twenty-six thousand men at arms handsomer nor better armed were never seen.' Ha, ha, ' replied Sir Hugh, who was much provoked at the latter part of this speech, 'thou art a fine fellow to come and mock us with this pompous tale. I know well thou hast lied; for many a time have I seen the armies of France, but they never amounted to twenty-six thousand; no, not even to six thousand men at arms.' As he said this, the watch of the town who was at his post, sounded his trumpet, for the van of the enemy was about passing near the walls - Sir Hugh then, addressing the knights and squires present, said Come, come, let us go and see these twenty-six thousand men at arms march by, for our watch blows his horn They went on the walls of the place and leaning on them, observed the march of the van, which might have con sisted of about fifteen hundred lances, with the constable, the marshals, the master of the cross-bows and the Lord de Courcy. Next came the Duke of Brittany, the Earl of Flanders and the Count de St. Pol, who had under his command about fifteen hundred lances more. Sir Hugh Calveley, who thought he had seen the whole army, said Now see if I did not say truth where are these twenty-six thousand men? Why if they be three thousand menat arms, they are ten thousand. Let us go to dinner, for I do not yet see such a force as should oblige us to surrender the town. This herald would frighten us well, if we were to believe him.' About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
