"Back, English 'tailards', back!"[313]
And Enguerrand de Monstrelet, the Burgundian chronicler of the events that marked the latter half of the Hundred Years' War, records another historical occasion on which the French gave utterance to their triumph in the traditional gibe at the alleged monstrosity of their old enemies. In his account of the evacuation of Paris, in 1436, he relates that, as the English retired from the city which they had held for sixteen years, the inhabitants hooted them with great cries of "Tails!"[314]
Coming down to the sixteenth century, we find that, in the early years of it, when hostilities broke out between Louis XII and Henry VIII, the old insult fell readily from the pen of the French versifiers who found subjects for their rhymes in the military incidents of the time. Thus, in the Dépucellage de la ville de Tournay, the town, referring to its ill-advised refusal of help when the English laid siege to it, is made to say:—
"To guard my ramparts from the foe's attack A ready offer from the King was brought; But, I refused, and sent the answer back: 'With men for watch and ward, no means I lack To bring the "tailards'" enterprise to nought'".[315]
But pride went before a fall. Tournay was occupied by the English in 1513.
In Anatole de Montaiglon's collection of fifteenth and sixteenth century verse, there is a poem which bears the title of Courroux de la Mort contre les Anglois, and which is in substance a bitter invective against the English generally. It is undated; but an allusion to the porcupine, the well-known emblem of Louis XII, points to its having also been written at this same period. In an apostrophe, the poet promises his countrymen an easy victory over the English:—
"In war your arms will speedily prevail Against your foe, the King 'that wears a tail'".[316]
The fight of Guinegate, commonly known as the battle of the Spurs, can hardly have been looked upon by him as a fulfilment of his prophecy. It may rather, if that were still possible, have increased the animosity which inspired the two scurrilous lines in which he strung together as many opprobrious epithets as the measure of his verse would admit, and which duly included the traditional slander, linked, in this instance, with the equally popular nickname of "godon", supposed to have originated in the frequent and profane use which the English made of God's name:—
"Ye noisome, greedy, fetid braggarts, go! Ye 'tailard' godons, rid me of your sight!"[317]
So far, the use of the abusive term "tailard", in French coué and in Latin caudatus, has been traced in immediate connection with events that brought the English into direct conflict with their enemies. There are not wanting instances, however, to show that no special provocation was required, and that from century to century it currently served the purpose of those whom national antipathy prompted to revile the English, or to hold them up to ridicule. To begin with Eustache Deschamps, the most prolific and versatile versifier of the late fourteenth and the early fifteenth centuries, we find him giving Englishmen and their tails a conspicuous place in his satirical verses. In a poem of which only a fragment remains, he describes how