After two hours' fighting, both failed against the fiery national passion of the Flemish communes, and the two French leaders, the Constable and the Count of Artois, were left, both of them, lying on the field of battle amidst twelve or fifteen thousand of their dead.

"I yield me! I yield me!" cried the Count of Artois; but, "We understand not thy lingo," ironically answered in their own tongue the Flemings who surrounded him; and he was forthwith put to the sword.
Too late to save him galloped up a noble ally of the insurgents, Guy of Namur.

"From the top of the towers of our monastery," says the Abbot of St.Martin's of Tournai, "we could see the French flying over the roads, across fields and through hedges, in such numbers that the sight must have been seen to be believed.

There were in the outskirts of our town and in the neighboring villages, so vast a multitude of knights and men- at-arms tormented with hunger, that it was a matter horrible to see.
They gave their arms to get bread." [Illustration: The Battle of Courtrai----167] A French knight, covered with wounds, whose name has remained unknown, hastily scratched a few words upon a scrap of parchment dyed with blood; and that was the first account Philip the Handsome received of the battle of Courtrai, which was fought and lost on the 11th of July, 1302.
The news of this great defeat of the French spread rapidly throughout Europe, and filled with joy all those who were hostile to or jealous of Philip the Handsome.

The Flemings celebrated their victory with splendor, and rewarded with bounteous gifts their burgher heroes, Peter Deconing amongst others, and those of their neighbors who had brought them aid.