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ROMANTIC HEROES OF HISTORY.

II. DUGUESCLIN.

THOSE who admire and those who object to military glory may alike be humiliated or appeased, according to their respective sentiments, by the reflection that, if dazzling, it is often evanescent. Here is a man not less celebrated than Turenne, or Wellington, or Marlborough, in his days, and yet to the greater number of our readers, and nine men out of ten at present in existence, his name may even be a stranger. Still he was one of the most noted captains of France, and the liberator, to a great extent, of that country from the English, as well as of Spain from the sway of the Saracens.

This celebrated hero was born in the chateau of his ancestors, near Rennes, towards the close of the year 1314, but the exact date of his birth is unknown. His family was one of the first houses in Bretagne, and claimed descent even from an African king; yet, though his fiery temper ament well supported the pretension, this circumstance, too, is doubtful, if not wholly fabulous. Of his own early history little is known, saving that he was the eldest of ten children, and exhibited no precocity. His teacher indeed, it is said, never even succeeded in imparting to him the simplest rudiments of education, and at last quitted in despair of ever being able to teach him the now very common-place art of reading. But this was then a rare acquisition. War and contention formed his only pleasure. By day he talked, by night he dreamed but of battle. Hard and stubborn as he was by nature, the menaces and punishment resorted to for the purpose of breaking him in seemed only to render him the more intractable; and it was not till an opposite course was adopted, and gentleness exhibited for coercion, that he shewed he was capable of being subdued by kindness, though utterly unsusceptible to fear. Though deformed, of short stature, high shoulders, and heavy head, he was constantly engaged in military exercises; and his eyes full of fire, though small, evinced that strive was the natural sphere of his heart. At the age of sixteen, an early annalist records, he made his escape from home to participate in a combat at Rennes; and at seventeen it is undoubted he took part in a very celebrated tournament which the noted Count of Blois there gave to the elite of the knights of England and France. Duguesclin's father, a chevalier of no mean renown, though now thrown into the shade by his son, took part in this combat; but, previously to setting out, had adopted the precaution of locking up his first-born at home. The youth, however, had managed to borrow arms and a steed from some friendly neighbour, and the charge was scarcely sounded when, unknown, he dashed into the lists. One stalwart knight was overturned by his violence; a second yielded to the strength of his arm: his unconscious father couched fence against the daring intruder, and it was not until

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Duguesclin then raised his visor, and declined the encounter, that the others discovered they had been overthrown by a youth of seventeen. several subsequent actions of the day he was equally distinguished, and his father consequently made no farther objection to his enrolling himself in arms, which he ever afterwards bore. It was, however, no longer now in mimic strive, but in stern war. Embracing the cause of the Count Charles of Blois, who then laid claim to the Duchy of Bretagne, he made his first essay at the siege of Vannes, and with only twenty lances, he is said, by his countrymen, to have maintained a position against fully two thousand Englishmen. The nature of the ground possibly assisted, for, strong as was his own arm, and impuissant as were the foot-soldiers of his day against horse, it seems incredible that he could have maintained such a pass unless it had been a new Thermopyla. Notwithstanding all his valour, however, the Count was at last overcome; and on Duguesclin devolved the duty of conducting his two sons to England, as hostages, when Charles was obliged to succumb to the peace of the English Edward.

England was, at this period, the seat of one of the noblest knights who ever bestrode a steed—the illustrious Black Prince, Edward's immortal son. Duguesclin took part in many of the chivalrous encounters that then ensued, but no record of them now remains; nor indeed is this of moment, as those tournaments, if often marked by slaughter, seem invariably to have been distinguished by sameness. A species of coarseness, too, pervaded them; or rather the knights, when not engaged in them, never hesitated to resort to what we should now consider very un-knightly practices. Thus we find Duguesclin, on returning to France, adopting the rude stratagems which in an earlier age had distinguished the Scottish hero Wallace, and making his way into the chateau of Fongerai in the disguise of a waggoner. Securing the bridge by this means, he opened the route for his followers; and after thus taking the castle, made a bold attempt, with a hundred lances, upon the Duke of Lancaster at Rennes. This celebrated prince was then besieging that town, and for reasons now unknown, Duguesclin, by invitation, repaired to his head-quarters before engaging in strife. He is supposed to have received an overture to join the English; and certain it is that he had to fight a duel with Sir John Bamborough, a noted knight of that day, who insulted him on refusing. Duguesclin prevailed, and immediately afterwards he made such a violent attack by fire upon a huge wooden tower which Lancaster had erected for assailing the city, that the English retired in dismay. Rennes was consequently restored to Charles, who rewarded Duguesclin with the territory of Roche-de-Rien in requital for his services.

The siege of Dinan, in 1359, is the next operation in which we find Duguesclin engaged, and another duel, as before, was the preliminary to the strive. Duguesclin was entrusted with the city's defence, and a noted knight, Sir Thomas of Canterbury, having succeeded in carrying off a younger brother of Duguesclin, boldly alleged that it was the hero himself. With less prudence than we should now consider justifiable, Duguesclin resented the insult by a challenge, and again he was successful, not only in defeating his adversary but in raising the siege. this time, indeed, he was the only one who supported the honour of the arms of France. Almost all the rest of the country-its fairest provinces and finest towns-were in the hands of the English. The heroic Edward,

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and his still more heroic son, had struck down all opposition; and, unable even to raise the ransom they had imposed upon him, John-the unhappy King-had, like another Regulus, returned to England to pay in person that penalty which the disinclination or poverty of his kingdom prevented him from paying in the more agreeable form of current coin of the realm.

This was the era when Duguesclin may properly be said to have entered the service of France. Hitherto he had been only in that of one of its most powerful nobles; but a proposition having been made to him, and the government of Pontorson conferred by the representatives of the exiled prince, he raised a company of a hundred lances, and being joined by others, quickly expelled the English from Normandy. A marriage with a rich heiress, Thiephaine de Raguenel, enabled him shortly afterwards to make progress still more considerable; money being then, as now, one of the chief elements of war. The English were beat by him in several successive encounters; but a sort of private warfare seems to have been mixed up with his public service, as shortly afterwards we find him delivered as a hostage to the Count de Montfort, who then contested with De Blois for the Duchy of Bretagne. A change, however, soon succeeded. John died a prisoner in England, and his successor, Charles V., having appointed Duguesclin Governor of Normandy, the latter made his escape from a condition of captivity, and quickly defeated Charles, then named the Bad, King of Navarre. This victory had the effect of fixing the crown on the new French sovereign's head, and Duguesclin was created Marshal of Normandy in consequence. He was now coming in contact with more important foes, or at least foes more interesting to English ears. At the battle of Anrai, fought on the 29th of September, 1364, he encountered Clisson, Sir John Chandos, and the leading chivalry of England. Clisson furiously commenced the conflict by a formidable two-handed sword attack on Duguesclin, but the latter repelled and threw his forces into confusion. Chandos, however, had in the interval completely ovethrown the body which the Count of Blois commanded, killed their leader, and put his followers to flight. All the efforts of Duguesclin, therefore, returning from the pursuit of Clisson, to restore the combat, were vain ; and, surrounded by overwhelming odds, he was under the necessity of surrendering to the English commander. Sir John treated him with the distinction due to his own and the captor's courage, but his ransom was fixed at the high sum of a hundred thousand francs. How Duguesclin recovered his liberty is not exactly known. He was possibly assisted by the peace shortly afterwards established between France and England. But if this peace were of utility to him, it was of none to his free companions in arms. Thirty thousand of them were thrown on their own resources by its conclusion: and, finding no field for the exercise of their arms, they turned them on their own country, ravaged the provinces, and under the name of Grand Companies, committed devastations such as the enemy formerly had scarcely surpassed. Duguesclin, on his return, was entrusted by Charles V. with the task of putting them down; and now, for the first time, he exhibited the policy of the statesman, or great commander, instead of the mere brute-soldier force, which hitherto had been his chief characteristic, in common with all the troopers of that period. Instead of menacing or assailing them, as was confidently anticipated, he prepared at once to enlist them in a great political design, for the purpose of over

throwing the remaining power of the Saracens in Spain. Two candidates then contended for the throne of that country ;-Henry, surnamed Transtamare, and Don Pedro, or Peter the Cruel. The French King, agreeably to Duguesclin's proposition, adopted the side of the former; but the Black Prince of England and his martial father at first ranged themselves on that of the latter. With foes thus redoubted to meet, the Grand Companies commenced their march to Avignon: but they immediately got embroiled with the Pope, of whom, as representative of the Roman Empire, it was then the seat. With more consistency to their former predatory character than respect for his Holiness, they demanded to be relieved from the ban of excommunication, under which they laboured, and to be favoured with two hundred thousand francs, for the purpose of assisting them on their journey. The Holy Father offered to concede the one, but he evinced not the expected disposition to comply with the other. Yet the money, still more than the benediction, was an object of necessity to the soldiers. Rejecting the offer of being received into communion, therefore, they furiously assailed the city, and committed such excesses that the anathema of excommunication, which had been in the first instance withdrawn, was speedily reimposed. The church, however, found it vain to contend with such unruly warriors; and the pontiff having, by way of compromise, consented to give absolution and a hundred thousand francs, they proceeded on their march to the south. Entering Arragon, they continued their progress to Castile; and after a short but decisive encounter with Peter, they invested Henry with the thrones of Castile, Leon, and Seville, driving his rival to seek refuge in Portugal, and finally crowning the other at Burgos.

Duguesclin, on the termination of this short but decisive campaign, returned to France with the title of Duke of Molines, bestowed on him by the new Spanish sovereign; but he had not long reposed on his laurels, when the Black Prince, with the scarcely less redoubtable Chandos, penetrated into the Peninsula and overturned all. In less time than Duguesclin had raised him, Henry was precipitated from his throne, and Peter elevated in his stead. Duguesclin no sooner learned the intelligence, than with ten thousand men he burst the passes of the Pyrenees, and came up with Henry just as he was upon the point of engaging the enemy at Navarette. Both armies were about equal in number, and are said to have amounted to two hundred thousand in all; but the French were exhausted by their march, and their Spanish allies not equipped like their opposers. Above all, the dreaded leaders of England were present; and Duguesclin consequently attempted to dissuade the Spanish sovereign from an encounter. Henry, however, persisted; and that decisive action was fought. Duguesclin's anticipations were realized. The new sovereign was defeated; and Duguesclin with difficulty escaped being cut down in the sanguinary cry which arose from his opponent:-"No quarter to Duguesclin." The Black Prince, riding up at this moment, saved him from slaughter, and Duguesclin found himself a prisoner in the hands of the English. Yet he had not escaped from danger. The savage Peter made an attempt to assassinate him on entering the victor's tent; and, foiled in this, he made a still more atrocious offer for his head, which Edward magnanimously spurned. But the English king had not the generosity to treat his prisoner with clemency: Duguesclin being conducted to a prison in Bordeaux, while Henry was constrained to seek refuge in France.

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As a matter of course, all the recent acquisitions fell to the share of the victor. Peter was immediately installed in the government of Seville, Cordova, and Toledo, but he soon disgusted the Black Prince by his perfidy. This had the effect of facilitating Duguesclin's restoration to liberty, independently of the high impression which his lofty character had made on the chivalrous Prince. We accordingly find Edward, after a short parley, consenting to his liberation on payment of a hundred francs; but some disparaging words added on the smallness of the ransom, caused Duguesclin himself to insist that it should be raised to seventy thousand golden florins; the Princess of Wales, however, contributed thirty thousand of the amount, with a view of expressing her honourable estimation of the prisoner; and a chronicler of the period adds, that, had the French nobles permitted it, the whole ransom would readily have been paid by members of the English court; but Duguesclin's friends interposed, and enabled him quickly to return to Paris, and thence to the seat of hostilities in Spain, where he arrived at the critical moment of an impending action between Henry and Peter, the former of whom had been enabled by the French king's aid to renew the combat, while the other had called in the assistance of the Saracens from the southern shores of the country. The belligerents had previously been equal in resources and success, but the balance was thus turned on Henry's side. Duguesclin defeated first the Moorish sovereigns, or chiefs, who had arrived to Peter's aid, and, afterwards, the usurper himself, whom he took prisoner in the action. The fury of Peter on his capture transcended all bounds. Previously remarkable for his virulence to Duguesclin, his ferocity burst forth on meeting him in Henry's tent; and having attempted treacherously to stab him, he was struck down, mortally wounded, by his indignant captor. With his death terminated the war in Spain, and Duguesclin returned to France, where his presence was again required by the never-ceasing hostilities between that country and England. Charles V. had summoned Edward, as a vassal, to yield allegiance for the lands he held, and the province of Guienne, on his refusal, was immediately stirred to revolt against his lofty son. Duguesclin, who had been appointed Constable in his absence, "as the greatest warrior of his time," accordingly, no sooner arrived, than he found himself in collision with his former foes, and on the present occasion, he fought with more than his former success The English were quickly expelled from their hereditary province of Normandy; and Duguesclin, thence returning to Paris to stand godfather to one of the Princes (a high honour for a subject in those days,) passed on to Guienne, which, along with Poitou, the Limousin, and adjoining province, he speedily reduced as well as repressed the civil war in Bretagne, where the Duke of Montfort, in conjunction with the English, had raised the standard of revolt. It was after the repression of this struggle that the terrible retreat of the English and their ally, so memorable in history, took place. Of its horrors it would be beyond our province to furnish even an outline. Suffice it to say, that out of an army sixty thousand strong, scarcely a tenth reached Bordeaux; the others having fallen by the way victims to hunger, despair, and the sword of the pursuer, who eventually constrained Montfort to sue for peace, and consent to the annexation of Bretagne to France.

The annexed province, however, soon revolted, excited by attachment to its former lord, and also, it was surmised, by the arts of the English:and now the gloomy era of Duguesclin's career begins. Having been

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