Bertrand, pursuing his journey about three miles further, met a poor soldier of his acquaintance, who bowed and wished him joy of his deliverance. As to the poor man himself, he was now returning to his captor, at Bordeaux, having failed in collecting a ransom of a hundred livres. Bertrand not only desired his servant to give him this sum, but added as much more for clothes and arms. The poor prisoner loaded him with thanks and blessings, the more fervent because this ransom released him from a tyrant who had kept him a fortnight in chains.

From this soldier Bertrand learned that the Duke of Anjou was besieging Tarascon; and he thought that though he had agreed not to bear arms, still he might be useful to the French prince by giving him good advice. One would think that he was equally bound to do neither, but to remain as useless to his countrymen as if he were still in the English prison at Bordeaux. No doubt, however, he acted according to the notions of those times; and you will observe that Bertrand du Guesclin's loose interpretation of his promise agrees in character with John of Gaunt's equivocating way of ful

filling his vow to place his banner upon the walls of Rennes.

Du Guesclin found the Duke quite willing to give thirty thousand francs towards his ransom: or, with the help of the King, his brother, and of the Pope, to make up the whole sum. Here, also, he met with his brother, Oliver du Guesclin, and other knights, arrived with a reinforcement of Bretons. According to his promise he did not fight, but he did direct the assault on the walls of Tarascon, riding forth, unarmed, and shouting out terrible threats of vengeance on the citizens; and yet he was endeavouring all he could to bring about a peace, sending for the chief men of the place to visit him, representing how much better it would be for them, and also for the inhabitants of Arles, another neighbouring city, to submit at once to the King of France, than to depend any longer on the Queen of Naples, who lived too far off to govern them well, or to give them protection. It ended in their yielding to the French.

Bertrand then turned northwards, and travelled into Britany, where his old friends sub

Machines used for boring holes in fortified walls, to make openings for the action of the battering-ram.

scribed a sum of money towards his ransom. Before, however, he could get back to Bordeaux it was all gone,-given away to distressed fellow soldiers; once in particular to a party of ten, who had been kindly received by an innkeeper merely for Bertrand's sake. This bounty of his would not have been known, but that on their speedy return to Bordeaux, well accoutred and furnished with ransoms, the seneschal suspected them of robbery, and forced them to declare how so much riches had been

so quickly obtained. Bertrand himself came back as poor as he went; and upon the Black Prince's remonstrating that it was not quite wise to neglect his own liberty for other people's, he only answered, that "he could not resist doing as he had done. The people whom he had relieved were far worse off than himself, and as to his ransom, no doubt it would soon arrive from the King of France." So it did; and Du Guesclin having paid all his debts, once more left Bordeaux and went to Brest, to set off a second time for Spain with some troops collected by his brother and his cousins De Maunay.