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The barons talked among one another, lost in astonishment. Bertrand stood aside, his eyes fixed quietly upon the prince.

“Am I then at liberty?” he asked.

“Whence shall the money come?” queried Chandos.

“Trust me to find it,” said Bertrand. “I have good friends.”

“By my faith,” answered Chandos, heartily, “you have one of them here. If you need my help, thus much I say: I will lend you ten thousand.”

“You have my thanks,” answered Bertrand. “But before accepting your offer, I will try the people of my own country.”

The confidence of the gallant soldier was not misplaced. Part of the sum was raised among his Breton friends, and King Charles V. of France lent him thirty thousand Spanish doubloons. In the beginning of 1368 the Prince of Wales set him at liberty.

The remaining story of the life of Du Guesclin is a stirring and interesting one. War was the only trade he knew, and he plunged boldly into it. First he joined the Duke of Anjou, who was warring in Provence against Queen Joan of Naples. Then he put his sword again at the service of Henry of Transtamare, who was at war once more with Pedro the Cruel, and whom he was soon to dethrone and slay with his own hand. But shortly afterwards war broke out again between France and England, and Charles V. summoned Du Guesclin to Paris.

The king’s purpose was to do the greatest honor to the poor but proud soldier. He offered him the high office of Constable of France,–commander-in-chief of the army and the first dignitary under the crown. Du Guesclin prayed earnestly to be excused, but the king insisted, and he in the end felt obliged to yield. The poor Breton had now indeed risen to high estate. The king set him beside himself at table, showed him the deepest affection, and showered on him gifts and estates. His new wealth the free-handed soldier dispensed lavishly, giving numerous and sumptuous dinners, where, says his poet chronicler,–

“At Bertrand’s plate gazed every eye,
So massive, chased so gloriously.”

This plate proved a slippery possession. More than once he pledged it, and in the end sold great part of it, to pay “without fail the knights and honorable fighting-men of whom he was the leader.”

The war roused a strong spirit of nationality through France. Towns, strongholds, and castles were everywhere occupied and fortified. The English marched through the country, but found no army in the field, no stronghold that was to be had without a hard siege. Du Guesclin adopted the waiting policy, and kept to it firmly against all opposition of lord or prince. It was his purpose to let the English scatter and waste themselves in a host of small operations and petty skirmishes. For eight years the war continued, with much suffering to France, with no gain to England. In 1373 an English army landed at Calais, which overran nearly the whole of France without meeting a French army or mastering a French fortress, while incessantly harassed by detached parties of soldiers. On returning, of the thirty thousand horses with which they had landed, “they could not muster more than six thousand at Bordeaux, and had lost full a third of their men and more. There were seen noble knights who had great possessions in their own country, toiling along afoot, without armor, and begging their bread from door to door without getting any.” Such were the happy results for France of the Fabian policy of the Constable Du Guesclin.

A truce was at length signed, that both parties might have time to breathe. Soon afterwards, on June 8, 1376, the Black Prince died, and in June of the following year his father, Edward III., followed him to the tomb, and France was freed from its greatest foes. During his service as constable, Bertrand had recovered from English hands the provinces of Poitou, Guienne, and Auvergne, and thus done much towards the establishment of a united France.

Du Guesclin was not long to survive his great English enemies. The king treated him unjustly, and he threw up his office of constable, declaring that he would seek Spain and enter the service of Henry of Castile. This threat brought the king to his senses. He sent the Dukes of Anjou and Bourbon to beg Du Guesclin to retain his office. The indignant soldier yielded to their persuasions, accepted again the title of Constable of France, and died four days afterwards, on July 13, 1380. He had been sent into Languedoc to suppress disturbances and brigandage, provoked by the harsh government of the Duke of Anjou, and in this service fell sick while besieging Chateauneuf-Randon, in the Gevandan, a fortress then held by the English. He died at sixty-six years of age, with his last words exhorting the captains around him “never to forget that, in whatsoever country they might be making war, churchmen, women, children, and the poor people were not their enemies.”

He won victory even after his death, so say the chronicles of that day. It is related that an agreement had been made for the surrender of the besieged fortress, and that the date fixed was July 14, the day after Du Guesclin died. The new commander of the army summoned the governor to surrender, but he declared that he had given his word to Du Guesclin, and would yield the place to no other. He was told that the constable was dead.

“Very well;” he replied, “I will carry the keys of the town to his tomb.”

And so he did. He marched out of the place at the head of his garrison, passed through the lines of the besieging army, knelt before Du Guesclin’s corpse, and laid the keys of Chateauneuf-Randon on his bier.

And thus passed away one of the greatest and noblest warriors France had ever known, honored in life and triumphant in death.