chapel, which he named Victory, and which, endowed with great possessions
and having a government according to canonical rule, enjoyed the honor of
possessing an abbot and a holy convent. . . . Who can recount,
imagine, or set down with a pen, on parchment or tablets, the cheers of
joy, the hymns of triumph, and the numberless dances of the people; the
sweet chants of the clergy; the harmonious sounds of warlike instruments;
the solemn decorations of the churches, inside and out; the streets, the
houses, the roads of all the castles and towns, hung with curtains and
tapestry of silk and covered with flowers, shrubs and green branches; all
the inhabitants of every sort, sex, and age running from every quarter to
see so grand a triumph; peasants and harvesters breaking off their work,
hanging round their necks their sickles and hoes (for it was the season
of harvest), and throwing themselves in a throng upon the roads to see in
irons that Count of Flanders, that Fernand whose arms they had formerly
dreaded!"

It was no groundless joy on the part of the people, and a spontaneous
instinct gave them a forecast of the importance of that triumph which
elicited their cheers. The battle of Bouvines was not the victory of
Philip Augustus, alone, over a coalition of foreign princes; the victory
was the work of king and people, barons, knights, burghers, and peasants
of Ile-de-France, of Orleanness, of Picardy, of Normandy, of Champagne,
and of Burgundy. And this union of different classes and different
populations in a sentiment, a contest, and a triumph shared in common was
a decisive step in the organization and unity of France. The victory of
Bouvines marked the commencement of the time at which men might speak,
and indeed did speak, by one single name, of the French. The nation in
France and the kingship in France on that day rose out of and above the
feudal system.