BERTRAND DU GUESCLIN.* Tim preface to this book bears the
date of February of last year, when the inhabitants of Charleston must have already begun to watch for the approach of the Northern fleet and army, and the author—an active member of the South Carolina Legislature— in addition to the usual anxiety as to the reception which his work would meet with from the public, had to contend against the apprehension that it would never come before it at all, but be made spoil of by some captain of a hostile cruiser. It seems almost cruel to tell a man who has laboured hard amid circumstances so little favourable for literary composition as those of Mr. Jamison that, for anything we can see, he might as well have spared his pains ; but in truth that is the only opinion we can give. If his services as a statesman are valuable to his cause, we recommend him to let it have the full benefit of them. We do not think that he will do much good to himself or any one else as a writer. His book has, we grant, the merit of being free from the bombast and bad taste which are the besetting sins of his countrymen, but it is "dull, beyond all con- ception dull.' A large part of the two volumes consists of long extracts from Froissart (very much the worse for Mr. Jamison's translation) and from Cuvelier's " Chronique de Bertrand du Guesclin," and the rest of the narrative is about the tamest and driest thing of the kind we ever read. However, we think we can assure those curious for such information that they may find here a tolerably exhaustive account of all that the great Constable did and said, with probably not a little that he did not. For Mr. Jamison has a faith in his authorities almost touching in its simplicity. Ho quotes long discourses from Froissart as if he were. quoting "Hansard," and it does not seem to have occurred to him that as Cuvelier wrote long after Du Guesclin's death,
* The Life and Tit= of Balrand du Guadin. A Main y of the Fourteenth Century. By. D. F. Jamison, of South Carolina. London: Trubuer and Co.; Charleston: Jahn Russell. 184.
with the avowed object of re-animating the warlike spirit of the nobility, he was likely enough, in pursuance of so laudable an aim, to neglect that care in weighing the authorities for the exploits of his hero thought desirable nowadays by captious and " un- genial " critics. Even the chronicler's account of the battle of Pontvalain seems to have awakened no distrust in our author's breast, though it is not necessary, one would have thought, to be a very profound historical sceptic to suspect a fabulous element in a story of a sagacious veteran like Du Guesclin, who, after giving orders for a night march upon the English position, is too eager for the fray to wait to see them carried out, but gallops madly off to assail the foe single-handed, or with such few followers as can keep up with his impetuous course.
We do not think Mr. Jamison will succeed in inducing the world to place his hero on a higher pedestal than the one he has previously occupied. He i3 a strictly hLnest, if not a very discerning biographer, and in the story as he tells it we do not recognize those "high qualities of mind and heart" that he would have us find there. We sea in Du Guesclin a bold, sturdy Breton, who, although his father was a knight, had lived all the early part of his life with peasants, who was quite without the personal graces and accomplishments possessed by many of his contemporaries, both French and English, and used rather to boast that he could neither read, write, nor cypher. With activity and craft that made him an admirable guerilla chief, as a leader on a larger scale he wholly failed to distinguish himself. For, as Michelet says, whilst before the battle he would be cool and wary, rejoicing in stratagems and averse to engaging, save where he manifestly had the advantage in numbers or position, when once blows were begun, and his Breton blood was roused, his prudence and foresight seemed to desert him, and he would press to the front, dealing out fierce strokes with sword or axe till borne down and overpowered, and hence in each of the only two engagements be fought that deserve to be called battles- Auray and Navarrette—he was defeated and made prisoner. Both as knight and as general he was conspicuously inferior to the King of England, the Black Prince, and that mirror of all knightly excellence, Sir John Chandos, and hardly equal to men like Sir Hugh Calverly and Sir Robert Knollys. Ile was not habitually cruel, and for the most part kept inviolate faith with friend and foe—indeed, his unwavering loyalty to the French King (a loyalty from which he was not without strong provocation to deviate) is the brightest side of his character—but that he was often guilty both of barbarity and perfidy it seems to us useless to deny. Judged by the average standard of his age, there is no reason to pass an unfavourable verdict on his character. We cannot agree that it rose above it.
Bertrand du Guesclin was born about the year 1320—for the exact date is uncertain—in the castle of Mote-le-Bron, near Rennes, in Brittany. Though he was a warm partizan of Charles de Blois in the interminable contest between him and the Count de Montfort for the Duchy of Brittany which began about twenty years afterwards, and had attained great reputation in his native province, he did not fairly come before the world until 1359, when he was for the first time in the service of the French King—or rather of the Dauphin—at the siege of Melun. France was in- deed at that time in evil case, and needed all the help her sons could give her. The splendid qualities of Edward and his son, backed by all the resources of England, that was even then laying the foundations of her commercial great- ness, and poured forth her blood and treasures ungrudgingly for an object which the people made thoroughly • their own, enabled them for twenty years to chain victory to their standards, tilt it seemed to lie in the good pleasure of the conqueror whether France as an independent nation should exist any longer. Philip of Valois and his son John had alienated the Commons by an excessive taxation, a wasteful expenditure, and a debased coinage; the nobility by the summary execution without trial of some of its leading members. As for John, a brave and just, though stern and suspicious man, he seemed under some fatal necessity of either doing the wrong thing or doing the right in a wrong way. With proofs in his hand,—or so he said, and there is little doubt ho was right,—of the treason of the King of Navarre and the Count de Harcourt, he must needs seize them as they sat at his own son's table, throw the former into prison, and cause the latter to be beheaded on the spot without attempting to establish their guilt. And now, in 1359, John had for four years been a prisoner in England, and the Government, or what between the English, the nobles, and the States General, was left of it, was in the hands of Charles the Dauphin as regent, a young man of twenty-four, shy and reserved in manner, and on all hands more than suspected of the deadly sin of cowardice. On the fatal day of Poitiers he had seen the flower of the French chivalry, wedged helplessly in the lane, fall like sheep before the hailstorm of arrows, and had then with 800 followers withdrawn from the field without breaking a lance,—deserted the Orifiamme, and left his father to bear the victorious charge of the English men-at-arms as he best could by himself. Beginning his career with this cloud upon him, he had to bear with the insolence and exorbitant demands of the States-General, called together in 1356, who, as if resolved to visit all the sins of his fathers on his head, lost no opportunity of humiliating and irritating him. He had to counteract the machinations of that subtle and malignant spirit, Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, who in the confusion that pre. veiled seemed to find his true element, and rose with the occasion to a sublimity of lying and perfidy that an Asiatic might have envied. He had to strive to keep what he could of his inherit- ance, and make the best terms possible with the King of Eng- land. He did all these things. He bore, he waited, he did not despair, and in the end he by his prudence regained for France all and more than his fathers had lost her by unguided valour.
But though valour without wisdom had failed, wisdom would not do much without hard fighting. And to hard fighting Charles had a decided objection ; it is said that he never put on armour after Poitiers. Bertrand du Guesclin, on the other hand, was a man who liked nothing so well as giving and taking hard blows. By his victory at Cocherel, in May, 1364, over the forces of the King of Navarre, he saved Charles from capture almost on the very day of his coronation at Rheims, and the latter, who always knew who were the right men for his purposes, saw that the Breton knight was capable of good service, and bound him more closely to himself by very substantial marks of his favour. In the autumn of the following year Du Guesclin suc- ceeded in relieving France from the scourge of the Free Com- panies, whom he persuaded to follow him into Spain to the assistance of Henry of Trastamara. He had no easy task, for these marauders, who under the plea of "wanting to live" had been eating up the land like locusts for ten years, murdering, pillaging, and committing atrocities of all kinds, were little willing to leave their domicile, as they called the eastern provinces of France, where they felt quite sure of holding their ground, for an expedition into an unknown country. But Bertrand expatiated on the wealth of Spain and the rich booty they would acquire, backing his arguments by the merit that would accrue to their souls, now lost and reprobate for their countless crimes, by waging war against a wicked tyrant like Pedro of Castille, a man suspected of heresy and magic, and to be abhorred by the faithful for his close relations with Moors and Jews. His eloquence prevailed, and they agreed to follow him. As Avignon lay in the line of march, Bertrand, with that free- booter's instinct that was always strong in him, proposed that they should demand from the Pope his blessing, absolution from their sins, and 200,000 francs to aid them in their good work. Pardon and blessing were offered freely, but the money was a difficulty. However, there was no help for it. It was ill arguing with these godless free lances, who were hardly to be restrained from plundering the very Cardinal who came to treat with them of his rich clothes. The money was paid and they continued their march. Then followed the triumphant entry into Castille, the flight of Pedro, and the easy acquisition of the throne by his brother, who heaped honours and rewards on the man but for whose aid, he said, he should have been the poorest knight in Christendom. Pedro fled to Bordeaux, to the Court of the Black" Prince, who as Duke of Aquitaine was rulingFrance from the Loire to the Pyrenees under the terms of the treaty of Bretigny. In an evil hoar for himself the Prince consented to espouse his cause, summoned the Free Companies, nearly all of 'whom acknowledged him as their liege lord, from Bertrand's standard to his own, and entorod Spain. At Ne.varrette the arms of England again triumphed, Bertrand was made prisoner, Henry escaped with some difficulty into France, and Pedro was restored. The Black Prince kept his illustrious pri- soner in captivity for eight months, and then released him (in the beginning of 1369) on the payment of the enormous ransom, said to have been named by himself, of 100,000 crowns. No sooner was he at liberty than he was despatched at the head of five hundred lances to the aid of Henry, who had collected forces from various quarters, and was again disputing with his half- brother the throne of Castilla. Pedro was no longer under the tegis of England, and after suffering a defeat in the field shut himself up in the castle of Monteil. Mr. Jamison attempts to gloss over the episode that follows so discreditable to his hero. Pedro sought to open private negotiations with Du Guesclin, who revealed the matter to Henry, but at his instigation con- sented to seem to entertain them, in order to lure Pedro into his power. A place of meeting was named, and Du Guesclin promised the unfortunate King that be should be safe. We are told he had qualms of conscience in giving this promise. We doubt it. Bertrand was not Bayard, and the device probably seemed to him a clever and justifiable stratagem. At midnight on the 23rd of March, 1369, Pedro left his stronghold, and held a conference with Bertrand at his quarters. When on the point of leaving he was told "to wait a little," and Henry and an armed band rushed in. Pedro, though a tyrant, was a brave man, and died, like a wolf, "biting hard." He may or may not have been altogether as black as he has been painted. Ayala the Spanish chronicler, who wrote, it is true, long afterwards, says that he was a great lover of justice, and that his fall was due to a conspiracy of the ricohombres whose turbulence be had re- pressed.
But now Du Guesclin was summoned back to France, for Charles, divining that the hour was come for him to be splendide mendax with impunity, had entertained as suzerain the appeal of the Gascon lords against their Duke, and by consequence involved himself afresh in war with England. That by so doing he violated the express terms of the treaty of Bretigny, Hallam, we think, conclusively shows ; that his moral guilt was of a deep dye one must be a very warm partizan of the English cause to affirm. But at any rate, as Michelet says, "he might lie with safety ; every one was on his side." Edward's Gascon subjects re- fused to pay taxes for objects for which they cared nothing, were repelled by the reserve and arrogance of the English, and bored with their eternal talk of their battle of Poitiers. Fortune suddenly and completely turned about, and whatever the English did did not prosper. Sir John Chandos, that wise statesman and brave warrior, whose soul, says Froissart, " God has for his gentleness," the mainstay of the English cause, to whom really belongs the glory of Poitiers and Navarrette, fell in an obscure skirmish. The Black Prince, smitten with mortal sickness, went home to die, leaving behind him as a remembrance that horrible butchery of helpless men, women, and children at Limoges. Wherever the French appeared they were hailed as deliverers ; but the King's policy was to be cautious, and risk as little as might be, and Du Guesclin, who was now Constable of France, was just the man to carry it out. The English were driven out by little and little. Place after place was wrested from them, but general engagements were carefully avoided. Charles's orders to his generals were not to fight unless they wore five to one. In 1373 the Duke of Lancaster marched across France from Calais to Bordeaux, at the head of a large force, levying contributions, pillaging, and burning. He was allowed to do so. The sight of the English banners brought Poitiers and its overthrow back to the King's mind. He contented himself with garrisoning the principal towns, and refused to allow his officers to do more than hang on the march of the English, cut off their detachments, and restrain their foraging parties, consoling himself as he watched his burning villages with the pleasant say- ing of the Lord de Clisson,—" By smoke they will never come at your heritage." The war went on in this way for many cam- paigns, till in 1380 the English had lost all their possessions save Calais in the north and Bordeaux and Bayonne in the south, and after the death of Edward III. had ceased to make any strenuous efforts to recover their ascendancy. Bertrand du Guesclin had done the work he was set to do, and now in the July of 1380, whilst engaged in putting down some of the Free Companies who had made head in Languedoc:, he was seized with illness as he was laying siege to the fortress of Chateauneuf de Bandon, and died on the ninth of the month. He made an edify- ing end, as became a loyal soldier to the King and dutiful son of the Church.
He was a brave man, and deserved well of his country, and compared with the average run of his contemporaries will hold his own fairly enough. Though he was all his life engaged in fighting the English, he never seems to have felt any ill-will to- wards them. Indeed, the friendly feeling which, on the whole, prevailed between the two nations is very remarkable. We sup- pose it is to be explained on the same reasons that lead country gentlemen to feel a warm interest in the welfare of foxes and pheasants. The French and English knights felt they must have some one to fight with, and were rather thankful to their foes for stepping forward to supply their wants. We can say of Du Guesclin requiescat in pace with all our hearts, but hero-
worship, even could he command a much abler prophet than Mr. Jamison, would in his case be too low a fetishism.
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