everything ready for hemming them in; attacked on all sides they tried,
but in vain, to fly; a few, with difficulty, succeeded in escaping and
casting, as they went, into the neighboring swamps the banner of St.
George. "It is not easy," says the monk of St. Denis, "to set down with
any certainty the number of the dead; those who were present on this day,
and I am disposed to follow their account, say that twenty-five thousand
Flemings fell on the field, together with their leader, Van Artevelde,
the concoctor of this rebellion, whose corpse, discovered with great
trouble amongst a heap of slain, was, by order of Charles VI., hung upon
a tree in the neighborhood. The French also lost in this struggle some
noble knights, not less illustrious by birth than valor, amongst others
forty-four valiant men who, being the first to hurl themselves upon the
ranks of the enemy to break them, thus won for themselves great glory."

The victory of Rosebecque was a great cause for satisfaction and pride to
Charles VI. and his uncle, the Duke of Burgundy. They had conquered on
the field in Flanders the commonalty of Paris as well as that of Ghent;
and in France there was great need of such a success, for, since the
accession of the young king, the Parisians had risen with a demand for
actual abolition of the taxes of which Charles V., on his death-bed, had
deplored the necessity, and all but decreed the cessation. The king's
uncles, his guardians, had at first stopped, and indeed suppressed, the
greater part of those taxes; but soon afterwards they had to face a
pressing necessity: the war with England was going on, and the revenues
of the royal domain were not sufficient for the maintenance of it. The
Duke of Anjou attempted to renew the taxes, and one of Charles V.'s
former councillors, John Desmarets, advocate-general in parliament,
abetted him in his attempt. Seven times, in the course of the year 1381,
assemblies of notables met at Paris to consider the project, and on the
1st of March, 1382, an agent of the governing power scoured the city at