The Prince of Wales’s young son, Richard II., succeeded his grandfather, and Charles, on the accession of a king who was a minor, was anxious to reap all the advantage be could hope from that fact.  The war was pushed forward vigorously, and a French fleet cruised on the coast of England, ravaged the Isle of Wight, and burned Yarmouth, Dartmouth, Plymouth, Winchelsea, and Lewes.  What Charles passionately desired was the recovery of Calais; he would have made considerable sacrifices to obtain it, and in the seclusion of his closet he displayed an intelligent activity in his efforts, by war or diplomacy, to attain this end.  “He had,” says Froissart, “couriers going a-horseback night and day, who, from one day to the next, brought him news from eighty or a hundred leagues’ distance, by help of relays posted from town to town.”  This labor of the king had no success; on the whole the war prosecuted by Charles V. between Edward III.’s death and his own had no result of importance; the attempt, by law and arms, which he made in 1378, to make Brittany his own and reunite it to the crown, completely failed, thanks to the passion with which the Bretons, nobles, burgesses, and peasants, were attached to their country’s independence.  Charles V. actually ran a risk of embroiling himself with the hero of his reign; he had ordered Du Guesclin to reduce to submission the countship of Rennes, his native land, and he showed some temper because the constable not only did not succeed, but advised him to make peace with the Duke of Brittany and his party.  Du Guesclin, grievously hurt, sent to the king his sword of constable, adding that he was about to withdraw to the court of Castile, to Henry of Transtamare, who would show more appreciation of his services.  All Charles V.’s wisdom did not preserve him from one of those deeds of haughty levity which the handling of sovereign power sometimes causes even the wisest kings to commit, but reflection made him promptly acknowledge and retrieve his fault.  He charged the Dukes of Anjou and Bourbon to go and, for his sake, conjure Du Guesclin to remain his constable; and, though some chroniclers declare that Du Guesclin refused, his will, dated the 9th of July, 1380, leads to a contrary belief, for in it he assumes the title of constable of France, and this will preceded the hero’s death only by four days.  Having fallen sick before Chateauneuf-Randon, a place he was besieging in the Gevaudan, Du Guesclin expired on the 13th of July, 1380, at sixty-six years of age, and his last words were an exhortation to the veteran captains around him “never to forget that, in whatsoever country they might be making war, churchmen, women, children, and the poor people were not their enemies.”  According to certain contemporary chronicles, or, one might almost say, legends, Chateauneuf-Randon was to be given up the day after Du Guesclin died.  The marshal De Sancerre, who commanded the king’s army, summoned the governor to surrender the place