and I verily believe it is for thee they are looking; what wilt thou do?'
Big Ferre, forgetting his sickness, armed himself in all haste, took his
axe which had already stricken to death so many foes, went out of his
house, and entering into his little yard, shouted to the English as soon
as he saw them, 'Ah! scoundrels, you are coming to take me in my bed; but
you shall not get me.' He set himself against a wall to be in surety
from behind, and defended himself manfully with his good axe and his
great heart. The English assailed him, burning to slay or to take him;
but he resisted them so wondrously, that he brought down five much
wounded to the ground, and the other seven took to flight. Big Ferre,
returning in triumph to his bed, and heated again by the blows he had
dealt, again drank cold water in abundance, and fell sick of a more
violent fever. A few days afterwards, sinking under his sickness, and
after having received the holy sacraments, Big Ferre went out of this
world, and was buried in the burial-place of his own village. All his
comrades and his country wept for him bitterly, for, so long as he lived,
the English would not have come nigh this place."

There is probably some exaggeration about the exploits of Big Ferre and
the number of his victims. The story just quoted is not, however, a
legend; authentic and simple, it has all the characteristics of a real
and true fact, just as it was picked up, partly from eye-witnesses and
partly from hearsay, by the contemporary narrator. It is a faithful
picture of the internal state of the French nation in the fourteenth
century; a nation in labor of formation, a nation whose elements, as yet
scattered and incohesive, though under one and the same name, were
fermenting each in its own quarter and independently of the rest, with a
tendency to mutual coalescence in a powerful unity, but, as yet, far from
succeeding in it.

Externally, King Charles V. had scarcely easier work before him. Between
himself and his great rival, Edward III., King of England, there was only
such a peace as was fatal and hateful to France. To escape some day from
the treaty of Bretigny, and recover some of the provinces which had been
lost by it--this was what king and country secretly desired and labored
for. Pending a favorable opportunity for promoting this higher interest,
war went on in Brittany between John of Montfort and Charles of Blois,
who continued to be encouraged and p