THE FIELD OF POITIERS.
"It is very strange," said I, "that no one can tell me where it lies."
But I forgot that the French, very wisely, never remember the battles they lose: and as here their kingdom was overthrown, and its king taken prisoner, they of course made the more haste to forget it. So I desired my guide to conduct me to the Pierre Levée, and resolved to seek the field of battle myself.
It is simply a Celtic monument, the Pierre Levée, and is only curious from its insulated situation; but as I always like to have the best information going, I asked the guide what he thought of it.
Common people have two ways of disposing of things that they would not else know what to do with. If they want to send them away, they send them to the devil; if they do not know where they come from, they bring them from heaven. This latter was the case with my guide and the Pierre Levée; so he told me, that it dropped from the skies four hundred thousand years ago.
As this is a more probable account than any I have read or heard of, concerning these Celtic monuments; and as it fixes the date precisely, I feel myself bound not to withhold it from the world.
I sought the field of battle by myself, and a long and weary search it was. No one could give me any account of it, and many had never heard of any battle there at all. There was a spot struck me at length, as offering the most probable position. I pitched the Black Prince's camp on a small rising ground, and disposed King John's army round about him, so that he could not escape. There was a wood that covered the archers, just in front; and a wide open space, having the advantage of the field, which I filled up with horse. Then there was a body of strong men at arms resting on the village below, flanked by the spears of the guard; and down between the English and the river, was the whole division of Ribemont and Clermont. I drew it out in my own mind as clearly as possible. It was as fine a battle as ever was seen; and I set my heart upon its being just there.
There was a group of peasants playing at the door of a grange, and as I saw one whose face I liked. I went up and asked him whether there had not once been a famous battle there. But he made me half angry by telling me, "No, that it was farther on." He overthrew all my host, as completely as Edward did that of France. "Tenez, monsieur," said he "you see that high tree in the distance; if you walk straight towards it, about a quarter of a league on this side, you will find a heap of large stones which we call les pierres brunes. You are then on the field of battle." I asked if he was sure. "He was certain," he said, "for that he had ploughed there often; and many a large bone, and rusty piece of armour, had he turned up with the ploughshare."
They were almost the words of Virgil.
"Scilicet et tempus veniet cum finibus illis
Agricola, incurvo terram molitus aratro,
Exesa inveniet scabrâ rubigine pila,
Aut gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanes,
Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulcris."
I followed the peasant's directions, and found myself certainly in the midst of that field, where the few struggled against the many, and conquered--where the mild warrior received his fallen enemy as a brother, and taught him, if not to forget, to bear his captivity. Were there many such adversaries, mankind would blush to draw a sword.
And it was here, that there were deeds of valour and of strength; of cruelty and generosity, and fury and calmness; of inconsiderate daring and cool calculating wisdom, and all that sum of good and evil which buys the bauble glory.
And for what did they bleed? For what did they fall?--the heroes of that splendid field of carnage?--to be forgotten! To have their bones turned up and ground by the iron of the plough, and their unhonoured dust trodden by the peasant's heel. The knight's sword rusting in peace beside his enemy's corslet, and the ashes of the coward and the brave amicably mingling in their native earth. To be forgotten! Their very burial-place unknown, but to the hind whose ground they fattened with their blood, and the pale antiquary who rakes amongst their bones for something ancient! The deeds that, even in dying, they fondly fancied would be immortal, overwhelmed beneath the lumber of history, or blotted out by fresher comments on the same bloody theme! The names they thought engraved deep in the column of Fame, erased by Time's sure destroying hand! The thrones they fought for and the realms they won, past unto other dynasties; and all the object of their mighty daring as unachieved as if they had not been!
Such is the history of every field of battle.[[7]]