In the tumult of his feelings, the excited lad failed to catch his mother’s answer; but he heard plainly his father’s gruff tones in reply.
“How he is e’er to be famed in knightly arms, I see not, for he is too clumsily shapen for lance or saddle; and, moreover, with that Saracen face of his (which hath the fashion of the demons in our mystery-plays) how shall he e’er get him a lady-love? And what true knight can duly do his devoir (duty) without one?”
Again the boy missed his mother’s reply; but its purport was easy to guess from Sir Yvon’s growling rejoinder—
“Anger me not with thine ill-bodings, foolish wench. Heaven forbid that son of mine should ever be scholar or maker (poet), or any such useless vagabond! Methinks there is little fear of it, for, thank God, he can neither read nor write; so far, at least, he is a true Du Guesclin!”
Such was indeed the case, for the fourteenth-century gentleman prided himself even more on his utter ignorance of letters than his counterpart in our day on his knowledge of them.
“Moreover,” went on the worthy castellan, striving to fortify himself with every assurance against the dreaded risk of his son degenerating into an educated man, “the boy himself saith Brother Michael’s words were, ‘The champion of this land;’ and in what wise should any champion aid his land, save with hand and weapon? ’Tis not with parchment and goose-feather, I trow, that men beat back sword and lance; nor is it with musty maxims stolen from dead men that one setteth armies in array. Nay, look not downcast, sweet; I meant not to chide thee, howbeit thy words chafed my rough humour somewhat. Break we now our parle, for it waxeth late, and it is full time we were sleeping.”
And their voices died away.
Sir Yvon and his lady might have been less slow of belief could they have looked forward into the future barely the space of one long lifetime, to the day when France, in her sorest need, was to find a champion and deliverer, not in a strong and daring young noble, but in a gentle, dreamy, child-like peasant girl of Lorraine, who was destined to lead great armies to victory, capture strong cities, defeat great generals in battle after battle, and hand down to the admiration of all ages, so long as the world should last, the glorious name of Joan of Arc.
But all this was still in the unknown future; and the many perils then darkening over France might well have seemed, even to a shrewder brain than that of the rugged old Breton knight, to call for a far abler champion than a passionate, headstrong, untaught boy of fourteen.
Within the realm, the smouldering rage of the trampled peasantry against the merciless oppression of the French nobles was gathering strength year by year, and was destined to explode ere long in that terrific outbreak that ante-dated the worst horrors of the French Revolution, and made all Europe shudder at the name of the Jacquerie. Without, the fiery young English king, Edward III., was already preparing to strike the first blow of that tremendous war which was to waste the best blood of France and England for many a year after his death. And to crown all, whereas England was as one man in her eagerness for the coming strife, France was fatally divided against herself, the king against the nobles, the nobles against each other, and the trampled people against both; and even the clergy were similarly divided between two rival popes, some adhering to Pope Clement of Rome, others to Pope Benedict of Avignon.