show more gayety than on the eve of the fight," says Voltaire.

"The conversation was of battles at which kings had been present in person.

The king said that since the battle of Poitiers no king of France had fought with his son beside him, that since St.Louis none had gained any signal victory over the English, and that he hoped to be the first.

He was the first up on the day of action; he himself at four o'clock awoke Count d'Argenson, minister of war, who on the instant sent to ask Marshal Saxe for his final orders.

The marshal was found in a carriage of osier-work, which served him for a bed, and in which he had himself drawn about when his exhausted powers no longer allowed him to sit his horse." The king and the dauphin had already taken up their positions of battle; the two villages of Fontenoy and Antoin, and the wood of Barri, were occupied by French troops.