Chatillon tried to
rally his forces, but the surprise had been too complete, and,
disguising himself in the cassock of a priest, he hid, in company
with Chancellor Flotte, till it was dark, when they managed to
escape from the town. By this time the carnage had ceased; the
walls of the houses and the gutters ran with blood; and the burghers
of Bruges had done their work so thoroughly that 2,000 Frenchmen
lay dead upon the streets.
But the final reckoning with France was yet to come. Then Chatillon
reached Paris and told his master the direful story of the Bruges
Matins, Philip swore revenge; and a few weeks later an army 40,000
strong invaded Flanders, under the Comte d'Artois, with whom rode
also Chatillon, Flotte, and many nobles of France. The Flemings went
to meet them--not only the burghers of Bruges, led by De Coninck
and Breidel, marching under the banners of their guilds, but men
from every part of Flanders--and on July 11, near Courtrai, the
Battle of the Golden Spurs was fought.
[Illustration: A FLEMISH BURGHER]
The ground was marshy, with a stream and pools of water between
the two armies; and just as the Scots at Bannockburn, twelve years
afterwards, prepared pitfalls for the heavy cavalry of England, so
the Flemings laid a trap for the French knights by cutting down
brushwood and covering the water.
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