'Sir,' said his knights to him, 'go back to your ship, and come not now to land, for here is an ill sign for you.' 'Nay, verily,' quoth the king, full roundly, 'it is a right good sign for me, since the land doth desire me.'" Caesar did and said much the same on disembarking in Africa, and William the Conqueror on landing in England.
In spite of contemporary accounts, there is a doubt about the authenticity of these striking expressions, which become favorites, and crop up again on all similar occasions.
For a month Edward marched his army over Normandy, "finding on his road," says Froissart, "the country fat and plenteous in everything, the garners full of corn, the houses full of all manner of riches, carriages, wagons and horses, swine, ewes, wethers, and the finest oxen in the world." He took and plundered on his way Barfleur, Cherbourg, Valognes, Carentan, and St.Lo.

When, on the 26th of July, he arrived before Caen, "a city bigger than any in England save London, and full of all kinds of merchandise, of rich burghers, of noble dames, and of fine churches," the population attempted to resist.

Philip had sent to them the constable, Raoul d'Eu, and the Count of Tancarville; but, after three days of petty fighting around the city and even in the streets themselves, Edward became master of it, and on the entreaty, it is said, of Godfrey d'Hareourt, exempted it from pillage.

Continuing his march, he occupied Louviers, Vernon, Verneuil, Mantes, Meulan, and Poissy, where he took up his quarters in the old residence of King Robert; and thence his troops advanced and spread themselves as far as Ruel, Neuilly, Boulogne, St.
Cloud, Bourg-la-Reine, and almost to the gates of Paris, whence could be seen "the fire and smoke from burning villages." "We ourselves," says a contemporary chronicler, "saw these things; and it was a great dishonor that in the midst of the kingdom of France the King of England should squander, spoil, and consume the king's wines and other goods." Great was the consternation at Paris.

And it was redoubled when Philip gave orders for the demolition of the houses built along by the walls of circumvallation, on the ground that they embarrassed the defence.