her duchy.

Whilst the two Joans were exhibiting in Brittany, for the preservation or
the recovery of their little dominion, so much energy and persistency,
another Joan, no princess, but not the less a heroine, was, in no other
interest than the satisfaction of her love and her vengeance, making war,
all by herself, on the same territory. Several Norman and Breton lords,
and amongst others Oliver de Clisson and Godfrey d'Harcourt, were
suspected, nominally attached as they were to the King of France, of
having made secret overtures to the King of England. Philip of Valois
had them arrested at a tournament, and had them beheaded without any form
of trial, in the middle of the market-place at Paris, to the number of
fourteen. The head of Clisson was sent to Nantes and exposed on one of
the gates of the city. At the news thereof, his widow, Joan of
Belleville, attended by several men of family, her neighbors and friends,
set out for a castle occupied by the troops of Philip's candidate,
Charles of Blois. The fate of Clisson was not yet known there; it was
supposed that his wife was on a hunting excursion; and she was admitted
without distrust. As soon as she was inside, the blast of a horn gave
notice to her followers, whom she had left concealed in the neighboring
woods. They rushed up, and took possession of the castle, and Joan de
Clisson had all the inhabitants--but one--put to the sword. But this was
too little for her grief and her zeal. At the head of her troops,
augmented, she scoured the country and seized several places, everywhere
driving out or putting to death the servants of the King of France.
Philip confiscated the property of the house of Clisson. Joan moved from
land to sea. She manned several vessels, attacked the French ships she
fell in with, ravaged the coasts, and ended by going and placing at the
service of the Countess of Montfort her hatred and her son, a boy of
seven years of age, whom she had taken with her in all her expeditions,
and who was afterwards the great constable, Oliver de Clisson. We shall
find him under Charles V. and Charles VI. as devoted to France and her
kings as if he had not made his first essays in arms against the
candidate of their ancestor, Philip. His mother had sent him to England,
to be brought up at the court of Edward III., but, shortly after taking a
glorious part with the English in the battle of Auray, in which he lost
an eye, and which secured the duc