So ends the jousting, and that night round St. Aliquis blaze the great camp fires of the company, all cooking most hearty suppers (after fasting almost all day), everybody visiting from tent to tent, fighting the day's contests over again, condoling with the defeated and praising the victors. Alliances, both military and matrimonial, are negotiated between consequential barons; the jongleurs produce tricks and songs; there is a great deal of dancing by the red firelight; and also, one fears, much hard drinking and most unseemly revelry.
The next day there is the climax to the festival, the mêlée. Really, it is nothing less than a pitched battle on a small scale. The details have been arranged at a council of the more prominent seigneurs at the castle. About forty knights on a side are to fight under the leadership of the Viscount of Gemours and the Baron of Dompierre. The space in the lists is insufficient. They go to a broad, convenient meadow across the Claire, where the noncombatants can watch from a safe distance. The marshals array the two companies "at least a bowshot apart." Groups of friendly knights are set together and are placed opposite to groups of rivals with whom they are anxious to collide. The great banners of the houses of Gemours and Dompierre flutter in the center of each respective array, and all the little banderoles of the various knights wave with them.
When all is ready, Conon gives the signal, "Charge them in God's name!"
[Illustration: A COMBAT IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
From the manuscript of Herrade of Landsperg (Schultz).]
Each baron is expected to charge a particular foe, but all are liable to be swerved in the great rush of men and horses. The two flashing squadrons of cavalry come together like thunderbolts. All the danger of the jousts is present, and another more terrible--that of being trampled to death, if once down, by the raging horses. There is no real leadership. Gemours and Dompierre merely try to set examples of valor and to push their banners forward as rallying points. At first the fighting is good-humored, but when the lances are broken and everyone is smiting one another with sword or mace, the contest becomes desperate. A fearful cloud of dust rises, almost blinding to the combatants, and rendering their blows more reckless.