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As I recall, this battle pitted French knights against stout Englishmen armed with longbows. The French knights continued to charge against them all day and were basically picked off by the archers. At nightfall the French quit. Here is my question: Were the French knights paid recruits? This doesn't fit in with what a knight was.

Actually, the French knights were mostly killed by
English Men-at-arms, the press of French trying to
gain glory meant that the first ranks could neither
turn or retreat, blocked in by those who came after them.
The English, were able to take them in flank and in brutal
hand fighting slaughtered them.
To the point the FRench were having to attack over the bodies of their slain, which made for even worse footing.
Many were captured for ransom, but when word came that the
french were attacking the van, the pages and wagons left
out side the fight , word was given to kill them so as to
prevent them returning to the fight.

A bloody business.

Citizen Tom Paine wrote: As I recall, this battle pitted French knights against stout Englishmen armed with longbows. The French knights continued to charge against them all day and were basically picked off by the archers. At nightfall the French quit. Here is my question: Were the French knights paid recruits? This doesn't fit in with what a knight was.

On either the History or Discovery Channel I saw an analysis of Agincourt which included an examination of the actual battlefield.

The intial charge of the French knights started on a broad front but was funnelled down into a narrow one by topography.

The cast iron arrowheads of the English bowmen couldn't penetrate the French knights' armor, but it could and did bring down their horses or cause them to become unmaageable.

When the first rank of knights went down those behind just kept piling into the tangle.

The ground was wet and the soil at Agencourt formed a clinging, sticky mud which made walking difficult, particularly for those wearing armor.

"Here is my question: Were the French knights paid recruits? This doesn't fit in with what a knight was."
Post-Agincourt French lancers were both paid by the king and of noble rank, but that started with Charles VII, IIRC. The pre-Agincourt ones would not have been paid by the king in centralized fashion, but by their feudal superiors, thus I'd expect the French military payroll of 1415 to be grossly disorganized and difficult to sum up. Warlords like John of Hainault would have come with their own bands of knights, and I doubt that these would be included in French payroll accounts. Since the French lost, he would have been unlikely to send an invoice for his services.