“Is he wounded?”
“No, sire.”
“Is he thrown to the ground?”
“No, but he is hard-pressed.”
“Then,” said the king, “I shall send no aid. I have set my heart upon his proving himself a brave knight, and I am resolved that the victory shall be due to his own valor.”
CAPTURE OF KING JOHN AND HIS SON.
In 1356, in another campaign in Normandy, the Black Prince won a most brilliant victory at Poitiers, and captured the French King John. The latter was a brave soldier, and fought with his battle-axe until all the nobles had forsaken him. The Black Prince made a supper for him in his tent in the evening, and waited upon him at the table with his own hands. The Black Prince and the captive king rode through London together, the former in great pomp, and the latter on a cream-colored pony by his side. All of these things read prettily in history, but one is glad that the time is past when war was the game of kings, and armies were used as their playthings.
A series of easy rides near the cool sea brought the Class to the old fishing village of Étretat, now a fashionable summer resort for French artists, and a popular bathing-place for those desiring seclusion amid the coast scenery. It is situated amid rocks which the sea has excavated into arches, aiguilles, and other fantastic recesses and caverns. Its pretty châlets and villas on the hills, its gayly-dressed summer idlers, its groups of fishermen who are to be seen in all weathers, its handsome fisher girls bronzed by the sun who lead a free life by the sea, its bathers in brilliant dresses of blue serge and bright trimmings, its bracing air and usually fine weather, make it one of the quaintest and most restful nooks in France.