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, or 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 prov inces 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 gov. ernment of the Duke of Anjou, and in this service fell sick while besieging Châteauneuf-Raudon, in the Gévandan, 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 agree

ment 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 com

mander 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 Châteauneuf-Raudon 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.

JOAN OF ARC, THE MAID OF ORLEANS.

Ar the hour of noon, on a sunny summer's day in the year of our Lord 1425 a young girl of the little village of Domremy, France, stood with bent head. and thoughtful eyes in the small garden attached to her father's humble home. There was nothing in her appearance to attract a second glance. Her parents were peasants, her occupation was one of constant toil, her attire was of the humblest, her life had been hitherto spent in aiding her mother at home or in driving her father's few sheep afield. None who saw her on that day could have dreamed that this simple peasant maiden was destined to become one of the most famous women whose name history records, and that this day was that of the beginning of her career.

She had been born at a critical period in history. Her country was in extremity. For the greater part of a century the dreadful "Hundred Years' War" had been waged, desolating France, destroying its people by the thousands, bringing it more and more under the dominion of a foreign foe. The realm of France had now reached its lowest depth of disaster, its king uncrowned, its fairest regions overrun,-here by the English, there by the Burgundians,—the whole