The emperor had sent his best captains and his best cavalry.

The army of Flanders had given its best troops.

Out of that is formed an army of twenty-five thousand horse, fifteen thousand foot, and forty cannon.

This cloud, big with thunder and lightning, comes bursting over Picardy, which it finds unsheltered, our arms being occupied elsewhere.

They take, first of all, La Capelle and Le Catelet; they attack, and in nine days take, Corbie; and so they are masters of the river; they cross it, and they lay waste all that lies between the Somme and the Oise.