Philip, greatly affected and a little alarmed, sent for his prisoner, the aged Guy de Dampierre, and loaded him with reproaches, as if he had to thank him for the calamity; and, forthwith levying a fresh army, "as numerous," say the chroniclers, "as the grains of sand on the borders of the sea from Propontis to the Ocean," he took up a position at Arras, and even advanced quite close to Douai; but he was of those in whom obstinacy does not extinguish prudence, and who, persevering all the while in their purposes, have wit to understand the difficulties and clangers of them.

Instead of immediately resuming the war, he entered into negotiations with the Flemings; and their envoys met him in a ruined church beneath the walls of Douai.

John of Chalons, one of Philip's envoys, demanded, in his name, that the king should be recognized as lord of all Flanders, and authorized to punish the insurrection of Bruges, with a promise, however, to spare the lives of all who had taken part in it.

"How!" said a Fleming, Baldwin de Paperode; "our lives would be left us, but only after our goods had been pillaged and our limbs subjected to every torture!" "Sir Castellan," answered John of Chalons, "why speak you so?
A choice must needs be made; for the king is determined to lose his crown rather than not be avenged." Another Fleming, John de Renesse, who, leaning on the broken altar, had hitherto kept silence, cried, "Since so it is, let answer be made to the king that we be come hither to fight him, and not to deliver up to him our fellow-citizens;" and the Flemish envoys withdrew.

Still Philip did not give up negotiating, for the purpose of gaining time and of letting the edge wear off the Flemings' confidence.