“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 whole of Quercy, preaching and demonstrating the good cause of the King of France; and he converted, without striking a blow, Cahors and more than sixty towns, castles, or fortresses.”  Charles V. neglected no means of encouraging and keeping up the public impulse.  It has been remarked that, as early as the 9th of May, 1369, he had convoked the states-general, declaring to them in person that “if they considered that he had done anything he ought not, they should say so, and he would amend it, for there was still time for reparation if he had done too much or not enough.”  He called a new meeting on the 7th of December, 1369, after the explosion of hostilities, and obtained from them the most extensive subsidies they had ever granted.  They were as stanch to the king in principle as in purse, and their interpretations of the treaty of Bretigny went far beyond the grounds which Charles had put forward to justify war.  It was not only on the upper classes and on political minds that the king endeavored to act; he paid attention also to popular impressions; he set on foot in Paris a series of processions, in which he took part in person, and the queen also, “barefoot and unsandaled, to pray God to graciously give heed to the doings and affairs of the kingdom.”

But at the same time that he was thus making his appeal, throughout France and by every means, to the feeling of nationality, Charles remained faithful to the rule of conduct which had been inculcated in him by the experience of his youth; he recommended, nay, he commanded, all his military captains to avoid any general engagement with the English.  It was not without great difficulty that he wrung obedience from the feudal nobility, who, more numerous very often than the English, looked upon such a prohibition as an insult, and sometimes withdrew to their castles rather than submit to it; and even the king’s brother, Philip the Bold, openly in Burgundy testified his displeasure at it.  Du Guesclin, having more intelligence and firmness, even before becoming constable, and at the moment