Under the Flag of France: A Tale of Bertrand du Guesclin

It was the fourth of July, 1380, and the sun was shining bright and warm on the craggy hills, and dark thickets, and quaint little hamlets of Western Auvergne, when four horsema...

Night had fallen over Calais on New Year’s Eve, cold, gloomy, threatening; and around a blazing fire in an upper chamber of the great tower flanking the Boulogne Gate were gathe...

“Now, beshrew these darksome woods, with ne’er a path through them! I had rather (so help me good St. George of England!) be set to find my way through yon Maze of Woodstock, of...

Only for a moment did this weakness master the cool and resolute Englishman, whose self-command was instantly restored by the recollection that the least imprudence on his part,...

“How now, Hal? What, man, thou art gay as a courtier whose tailor hath given him long credit! With all these bright ribbons and gauds on thee, thou’lt dazzle our eyes!”

The later autumn of that year was already stripping the Breton woods of their leaves, and Bertrand du Guesclin’s fifteenth birthday was not far away, when a band of horsemen, tw...

It was a bright, warm, cloudless morning in the summer of 1337, and along the dusty high-roads of Brittany crowds of people were pouring toward Rennes from every side; for a gre...

The duke’s herald was at once admitted by the old commandant, to whom he announced himself as the bearer of a message to Du Guesclin from the Duke of Lancaster.

Rarely has the world beheld, even in that age of ceaseless surprises, so strange a spectacle as the English invasion of Spain in 1367. The bravest and most honourable man alive...

The sunset of that memorable evening, as it faded from the scene of the wolf-fight, sent its last rays streaming through the small, narrow, loophole-like window of a plainly fur...

“Well, friend Gaspard, if these English wolves have the better of us in the open field, we are as good as they when it comes to defending towns. Six months, and better, have the...

“Raise thy lance-point a thought higher, lad; ay, so. Now put thy steed to his full career, but see thou keep him well in hand. Now wheel him—so, deftly done! Yet a few months’...

A feat like the capture of Fougeray Castle would have been enough for most men; but it could not satisfy Du Guesclin, to whom it was but the first step in the achievement of a f...

This knight had been, ever since he entered the little inn an hour before, an object of much curiosity and some fear to its whole household. He was sheathed in black armour from...

At sight of that well-known face a thrill of superstitious terror pulsed through the savage band, in all but the very worst of whom the feelings and beliefs of their childhood h...

Fiercely did Lancaster chafe at the mishap by which his cherished plan, so far from bringing about the fall of the town, had re-victualled it so amply that the besiegers seemed...

The Black Prince slept his last sleep in a stately tomb beneath the shadow of Canterbury Cathedral. His terrible father, Edward III., had followed him to the grave, leaving all...

As the song proceeded, the moody lad bent forward to listen with a visibly brightening face, though in an attitude of reverent awe; for his first thought was one that would have...

“Draw back thy head into the leaves, wilt thou, fool? The glitter of that morion would scare our birds if they fly this way, to say nought of thine ill-favoured visage, that loo...

On the same day on which Alured perilled his life to save the monk, a man was sitting alone, beside a dying fire, in the gloomy depths of the great forest which then covered a l...

On the same day that witnessed the deliverance of Rennes, the rising sun, lighting up a wild mountain pass in southern Spain, revealed two shadowy figures crouching behind a hug...

Nearly five months had gone by since that black New Year night, and the fields and woods of Old England were bright with all the beauty of sunny May, when a small band of armed...

It was now El Zagal’s turn to be amazed at the effect that his words produced on his foeman; for Alured grew pale as death, and swayed in his saddle as if stunned by a blow.

The July sun of 1354 was shining warm and bright on the broad stream of the Loire, and lighting up the hard, wooden, sun-browned faces of a group of peasants who sat talking on...

It was midnight, and all was still in the castle save the ghostly hooting of an owl from some half-ruined turret above, and the long, dreary howl of a prowling wolf from the glo...

While the pretended soldier was drawing off the attention of those who guarded the tower, two men, fully armed, had crept, one behind the other, along a deep trench that ran clo...

The king’s banquet was over, and night had fallen upon Calais; and the Black Prince, having himself made the rounds to see that all was safe in the fortress which had so narrowl...

Too truly said the prophet-lady of Raguenel, that France stood then in sore need of a deliverer. For now burst on the ill-fated land the full fury of that tremendous storm of ca...

The news of the king’s presence flew from mouth to mouth, and stirred the whole garrison to a tumult of joyful surprise, for it had till then been a secret to all but a chosen f...

At that renowned name, the bandits eyed each other doubtfully, as if hardly able to believe that the greatest warrior of the age stood among them in the guise of a simple knight...

By a superhuman effort, Alured repressed his bitter sorrow at this sudden overthrow of his hopes. But the keen-eyed emir could not fail to see that he was sorely grieved; and, e...

It was a clear, bright evening in the spring of 1334, and the setting sun was pouring a flood of golden glory over the wooded ridges, and dark moors, and wide green meadows, and...

On a low ridge overlooking the town of Carcassonne—girt then, as now, by the huge, dark-grey walls, against which, a century and a half before, Simon de Montfort’s destroying ho...