to him; but the governor replied that he had given his word to Du Guesclin, and would surrender to no other.  He was told of the constable’s death:  “Very well,” he rejoined, “I will carry the keys of the town to his tomb.”  To this the marshal agreed; the governor marched out of the place at the head of his garrison, passed through the besieging army, went and knelt down before Du Guesclin’s corpse, and actually laid the keys of Chateauneuf-Randon on his bier.

[Illustration:  Putting the Keys on Du Guesclin’s Bier——­407]

This dramatic story is not sufficiently supported by authentic documents to be admitted as an historical fact; but there is to be found in an old chronicle concerning Du Guesclin [published for the first time at the end of the fifteenth century, and in a new edition by M. Francisque Michel in 1830] a story which, in spite of many discrepancies, confirms the principal fact of the keys of Chateauneuf-Randon being brought by the garrison to the bier.  “At the decease of Sir Bertrand,” says the chronicler, “a great cry arose throughout the host of the French.  The English refused to give up the castle.  The marshal, Louis de Sancerre, had the hostages brought to the ditches, for to have their heads struck off.  But forthwith the 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,