people in the castle lowered their bridge, and
the captain came and offered the keys to the marshal, who refused them,
and said to him, 'Friends, you have your agreements with Sir Bertrand,
and ye shall fulfil them to him.' 'God the Lord!' said the captain, 'you
know well that Sir Bertrand, who was so much worth, is dead: how, then,
should we surrender to him this castle? Verily, lord marshal, you do
demand our dishonor when you would have us and our castle surrendered to
a dead knight.' 'Needs no parley hereupon,' said the marshal, 'but do it
at once, for, if you put forth more words, short will be the life of your
hostages.' Well did the English see that it could not be otherwise; so
they went forth all of them from the castle, their captain in front of
them, and came to the marshal, who led them to the hostel where lay Sir
Bertrand, and made them give up the keys and place them on his bier,
sobbing the while: 'Let all know that there was there nor knight, nor
squire, French or English, who showed not great mourning.'"

The body of Du Guesclin was carried to Paris to be interred at St. Denis,
hard by the tomb which Charles V. had ordered to be made for himself; and
nine years afterwards, in 1389, Charles V.'s successor, his son Charles
VI., caused to be celebrated in the Breton warrior's honor a fresh
funeral, at which the princes and grandees of the kingdom, and the young
king himself, were present in state. The Bishop of Auxerre delivered the
funeral oration over the constable; and a poet of the time, giving an
account of the ceremony, says,

"The tears of princes fell,
What time the bishop said,
'Sir Bertrand loved ye well;
Weep, warriors, for the dead!
The knell of sorrow tolls
For deeds that were so bright:
God save all Christian souls,
And his--the gallant knight: '

The life, character, and name of Bertrand du Guesclin were and remained
one of the most popular, patriotic, and legitimate boasts of the middle
ages, then at their decline.

Two months after the constable's death, on the 16th of September, 1380,
Charles V. died at the castle of Beaute-sur-Marne, near Vincennes, at
forty-three years of age, quite young still after so stormy and
hard-working a life. His contemporaries were convinced, and he was
himself convinced, that he had been poi