arrival of Louis the Germanic with his troops helped to swell the forces
and increase the confidence of Charles; and it was on the 21st of June,
841, exactly a year after the death of Louis the Debonair, that the two
armies, that of Lothair and Pépin on the one side, and that of Charles
the Bald and Louis the Germanic on the other, stood face to face in the
neighborhood of the village of Fontenailles, six leagues from Auxerre,
on the rivulet of Audries. Never, according to such evidence as is
forthcoming, since the battle on the plains of Châlons against the Huns,
and that of Poitiers against the Saracens, had so great masses of men
been engaged. "There would be nothing untruthlike," says that scrupulous
authority, M. Fauriel, "in putting the whole number of combatants at
three hundred thousand; and there is nothing to show that either of the
two armies was much less numerous than the other." However that may be,
the leaders hesitated for four days to come to blows; and while they
were hesitating, the old favorite, not only of Louis the Debonair, but
also, according to several chroniclers, of the empress Judith, held
himself aloof with his troops in the vicinity, having made equal promise
of assistance to both sides, and waiting, to govern his decision, for
the prospect afforded by the first conflict. The battle began on the
25th of June, at daybreak, and was at first in favor of Lothair; but the
troops of Charles the Bald recovered the advantage which had been lost
by those of Louis the Germanic, and the action was soon nothing but a
terribly simple scene of carnage between enormous masses of men,
charging hand to hand, again and again, with a front extending over a
couple of leagues. Before midday the slaughter, the plunder, the
spoliation of the dead--all was over; the victory of Charles and Louis
was complete; the victors had retired to their camp, and there remained
nothing on the field of battle but corpses in thick heaps or a long
line, according as they had fallen in the disorder of flight or steadily
fighting in their ranks.... "Accursed be this day!" cries Angilbert, one