The encounter took place on the 25th of October, 1415.

It was a monotonous and lamentable repetition of the disasters of Crecy and Poitiers; disasters almost inevitable, owing to the incapacity of the leaders and ever the same defects on the part of the French nobility, defects which rendered their valorous and generous qualities not only fruitless, but fatal.

Never had that nobility been more numerous and more brilliant than in this premeditated struggle.

On the eve of the battle, Marshal de Boucicaut had armed five hundred new knights; the greater part passed the night on horse-back, under arms, on ground soaked with rain; and men and horses were already distressed in the morning, when the battle began.

It were tedious to describe the faulty manoeuvres of the French army and their deplorable consequences on that day.