wards. Charles thought Paris not sufficiently secured on the east side, where was his habitual residence of the Hôtel de St. Pol. He therefore caused a fortress to be erected before it, and laid the first stone in these years. It was called the Bastille of St. Antoine, and became not a little celebrated as a prison. Another step to which Charles was drawn by the successful boldness of Knollis was to summon Du Guesclin to take the command, and finally to accept the office of Constable. Du Guesclin was not long in proving the confidence of his sovereign well placed, and at the same time his caution excessive. Several of the young English officers, says Walsingham, rebelled against Knollis, who proposed to withdraw into Brittany for the winter. They lingered behind him, not even in one, but in separate bands, by the advice of Mensterworth. Du Guesclin came upon some of them, in consequence, at Poutvalin, and defeated them. As Mensterworth afterwards joined the King of France, it is probable his treachery had been bought. But King Charles' commanders had no need of fighting battles in order to be victorious; for, although they abandoned the open country to pillage and devastation, the towns were safe. Those occupied by French garrisons were true to them, whilst the inhabitants of those of the ceded provinces were always prepared to give up the towns to their compatriots, and betray the English. There was not a place appertaining to Edward which did not thus hold communication with the French king's brothers, the Dukes of Berry and Anjou. The Black Prince, who lay on the bed of sickness at Angoulême, was there startled to hear that the important city of Limoges had opened its gates to his enemies. He instantly resolved to make an example of it, as the only means of putting a stop to the universal defection of the towns. He brought his army before it, himself borne in a litter. Every thing was done and attempted by Du Guesclin and the French Dukes to molest and CHAP. XII. CHAP. distract him. But the Black Prince remained immovable before Limoges, pressing the siege and undermining the walls. A portion of these at last fell, in consequence of the sap, and the victorious troops rushing in the breach, put the entire population of Limoges, men, women, and children, to the sword. Even Froissart is horrified at the slaughter, and says, the population fell at the feet of the prince to implore mercy, which he refused. The prince, however, could not quit his litter; and although his aim was to make an example, still such an act is so contrary to all recorded of his generous and noble nature, that it is probable he could not stop the licence of his soldiers in a city captured by storm. At all events, the massacre of Limoges remains a great blot on the escutcheon of England's first hero. But Such captures and retaliation as that of Limoges, with large reinforcements to supply garrisons, as well as to take the field, under such a commander as the Black Prince, might have delayed, if not prevented, the recovery of those provinces by the French. every one of these failed the English cause. The Black Prince was, in a very short time after, compelled to withdraw to England, in a sinking state of health. The Captal de Buch was taken soon after. Chandos had perished, Knollis was in disgrace, and the younger inen whom Edward employed were wanting in the skill and ascendancy of the Black Prince and of his valiant contemporaries. Charles of Navarre at the same time quitted what he saw to be the declining cause of the English. Had these, instead of their idle cavalcades in the north of France, marched at first their armies into Poitou, they might have turned the tide of victory. But Edward the Third, in his declining days, sent no more effectual aid to his partisans north of the Garonne than the imbecile John had done. Ill fortune and the winds were, however, more to blame for this than Edward's remissness. The Poi tevins, attached to England, sent one of their compatriots, Guichard de L'Angle, to Edward; and the king immediately despatched the Earl of Pembroke, with but 500 lances, certainly, but with money to pay 3000 knights, on board of thirty-six vessels, to La Rochelle. But Charles, who had first amongst monarchs perfected the art of espionnage, knew, as Froissart says, every thing that passed, or was about to take place, at the court of Edward. When Pembroke therefore arrived before Rochelle with his thirty-six vessels, he found fifty ships, much larger and fully manned, to oppose him, commanded by the admirals of Castille, Bocanegra, and De Vacca. The Spanish vessels were well provided with cannon, with heavy iron and missiles, wherewith, from tall ships, they crushed the English in their smaller boats. The English, nevertheless, maintained the attack; and, according to Froissart, had the number or the vessels been at all equal, their superior valour would have won the day. Even as it was, they reckoned on the people of Rochelle coming to their aid and removing the disparity. But the Rochellois desired no better than that the English should be beaten by the Spaniards, and they refused to offer any aid. The English were in consequence defeated, their vessels and themselves captured, the Earl of Pembroke himself amongst them. The finance ship, as Froissart calls the vessel which bore the treasure, was sunk. The Spanish fleet sailed home with their prisoners, and the English provinces in France were thus abandoned to themselves. Du Guesclin was not a commander to allow such an opportunity to pass; he instantly attacked and took Montmorillon, Moncontour, and St. Sever. The prince and the Captal de Buch could muster but about 1500 men, with which it was impossible at once to garrison towns and keep the field. Poitiers was left without defence, and the people immediately warned Du Guesclin. The better classes CHAP. XII. XII. CHAP. of citizens were for keeping faith to the English, and had sent for succour to Thomas Percy; but it came too late. Niort sought to follow the example of Poitiers, and the English, in order to hold it, had to treat the citizens as enemies, and slaughter the greater number. It became impossible, indeed, for the English soldiers, diminishing in confidence and numbers, unpaid and unsupported, to preserve almost any town. Soubise, at the mouth of the Charente, an important though small castle, was held merely by its dame and a few menat-arms. Du Guesclin sent a force to besiege it by land, whilst Ivan of Wales was to block it by sea. The Captal de Buch tried to relieve it, but his force being insufficient, he was overpowered and taken, and his important services thus lost to the English. the news of the Captal's defeat, Soubise surrendered, as did St. Jean d'Angely and Angoulême. Saintes hesitated to follow the example, till the bishop threatened its English commander to have him slain if he would not surrender. La Rochelle alone remained of the important towns, and the inhabitants were kept from surrendering merely by fear of the English garrison of about 100 men, which held the castle. On The The officer who commanded the garrison was, however, far from subtle. The mayor read to him a pretended royal letter, ordering him to muster on the esplanade along with the soldiers of the town. commander, suspecting no deceit, issued from the castle with his men for this purpose, when the town militia, instead of drawing up with them, instantly posted themselves between them and the castle, to bar their return. There ensued a combat, but the English were overpowerd by numbers. The castle was won, and the citizens instantly sent to the French commander stating their willingness to surrender, on certain conditions however. These were, that the castle should be razed, no taxes levied within the district, the right of coinage XII. preserved, and the promise that they should never again CHAP. be surrendered to England. The Rochellois lived to learn how utterly incompatible such stipulations for municipal liberty were with the despotic principles of the French monarchy. The surrender of La Rochelle rendered certain, if it did not altogether complete, the reconquest of the English possessions north of the Garonne. Two or three campaigns had sufficed for this, if, indeed, the name of campaign could be applied to a war of partisans, carried on by small bands of the French, whose principal tactics were to take advantage of the disaffection of the civic class to the English, and thus make entrance by treachery and surprise into every walled place. It was not any profound political sagacity in Charles, nor any great generalship in Du Guesclin, that drove the English out ofthe French provinces between Loire and Garonne, as well as from Ponthieu- it was the French townsfolk that reversed the victories of Crecy and Poitiers, and presented the French king once more with those provinces which he had lost. The kings and nobles, even with Du Guesclin at their head, could never have reconquered them; but when the citizens of Limoges, of Angoulême, of Poitiers, St. Jean d'Angely, and La Rochelle, were determined to shake off their English allegiance, and assume French, the legitimate possessors had not a sufficient force in the country to prevent them. The rustic classes were evidently not so hostile to the English. Cuvellier, the poet of Du Guesclin, says, indeed, that the countrypeople resumed the French yoke with reluctance: the serf was not so patriotic as the citizen. And although Breton and Gascon gentlemen in military service or command showed an unaccountable bitterness towards the English (Clisson, for example, who, although once in their service, used to slay with his own hand all the English soldiers whom he captured), the nobles of Poitou, or at least |