[3] The translation of this passage is unsatisfactory. It should
be: 'Howbeit they have ordered it wisely, and have taken post
along the road, which is fortified strongly with hedges and
thickets, and they have beset this hedge on one side (_or
according to another text_, on one side and on the other) with
their archers, so that one cannot enter nor ride along their road
except by them, and that way must he go who purposes to fight
with them. In this hedge there is but one entry and one issue,
where by likelihood four men of arms, as on the road, might ride
a-front. At the end of this hedge among vines and thorn-bushes,
where no man can go nor ride, are their men of arms all afoot,
and they have set in front of them their archers in manner of a
harrow, whom it would not be easy to discomfit.

The king said: 'Thus shall it be done': then the two marshals rode
from battle to battle and chose out a three hundred knights and
squires of the most expert men of arms of all the host, every man well
armed and horsed. Also it was ordained that the battles of Almains
should abide still on horseback to comfort the marshals, if need were,
whereof the earl of Sarrebruck, the earl of Nidau and the earl of
Nassau were captains. King John of France was there armed, and twenty
other in his apparel; and he did put the guiding of his eldest son to
the lord of Saint-Venant, the lord of Landas and the lord Thibault of
Vaudenay; and the lord Arnold of Cervolles, called the archpriest,[4]
was armed in the armour of the young earl of Alençon.

[4] Arnaud de Cervolles, one of the most celebrated adventurers
of the 14th century, called the archpriest because though a
layman he possessed the ecclesiastical fief of Vélines.