practice and command, and
rather over the great than the small. Here are my lords your brothers,
your nephews, and your cousins, who will have charge of men-at-arms in
the armies, and the rides afield, and how durst I lay commands on them?
In sooth, sir, jealousies be so strong that I cannot well but be afeard
of them. I do affectionately pray you to dispense with me, and to confer
it upon another who will more willingly take it than I, and will know
better how to fill it." "Sir Bertrand, Sir Bertrand," answered the king,
"do not excuse yourself after this fashion; I have nor brother, nor
cousin, nor nephew, nor count, nor baron in my kingdom, who would not
obey you; and if any should do otherwise, he would anger me so that he
would hear of it. Take, therefore, the office with a good heart, I do
beseech you." Sir Bertrand saw well, says Froissart, "that his excuses
were of no avail, and finally he assented to the king's opinion; but it
was not without a struggle, and to his great disgust. . . . In order
to give him further encouragement and advancement the king did set him
close to him at table, showed him all the signs he could of affection,
and gave him, together with the office, many handsome gifts and great
estates for binelf and his heirs." Charles V. might fearlessly lavish
his gifts on the loyal warrior, for Du Guesclin felt nothing more binding
upon him than to lavish them, in his turn, for the king's service. He
gave numerous and sumptuous dinners to the barons, knights, and soldiers
of every degree whom he was to command.

"At Bertrand's plate gazed every eye,
So massive, chased so gloriously,"

says the poet-chronicler Cuvelier; but Du Guesclin pledged it more than
once, and sold a great portion of it, in order to pay "without fail the
knights and honorable fighting-men of whom he was the leader."

The war thus renewed was hotly prosecuted on both sides. A sentiment of
nationality became, from day to day, more keen and more general in
France. At the commencement of hostilities, it burst forth particularly
in the North; the burghers of Abbeville opened their gates to the Count
of St. Poi, and in a single week St. Valery, Crotoy, and all the places
in the countship of Ponthieu followed this example. The movement made
progress before long in the South. Montauban and Milhau hoisted on their
walls the royal standard; the Archbishop of Toulouse "went riding through
the