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CLIFF CASTLES

health, and how he managed to remain steady to the French. He answered, 'Thank God my health is good, but I had more money at command, as well as my people, when I made war for the King of England, than I have now; for, whenever we took any excursions in search of adventures, we never failed meeting some rich merchants from Toulouse, Condom, La Réole, or Bergerac, whom we squeezed, which made us gay and debonair, but now all that is at an end.' On hearing this I concluded that the Lord d'Albret repented having turned to the French in the same manner as the Lord of Mucidens, who swore to the Duke of Anjou he would set out for Paris and become a good Frenchman. He did go to Paris, when the King handsomely received him; but he slunk away and returned to his own country, where he again became an Englishman, and broke all his engagements with the Duke of Anjou. The Lords of Rosem, Duras, Langurant, did the same" (iii. c. 21).

As with the captains of the Companies, so with the knights and seigneurs who fought in the South for the Crown of England—their names are for the most part French and Gascon, and not English.[1]

The Companies formed their nests in the rocks, which they fortified, or in castles they had captured, or in such as had been abandoned by the French, from inability to garrison them. The Causse was in their possession from

  1. Let it not be forgotten that those who condemned Joan of Arc to be burnt were Frenchmen. The University of Paris denounced her as a heretic. Her judges were the Bishop of Beauvais, a Frenchman by birth, Jean Graveraut, Professor of Theology at the University of Paris, Grand Inquisitor of France, Jean Lemaitre, prior of the Dominicans at Rouen, Her bitterest accuser was the Canon Jean d'Estivet, general procurator, who after the execution drowned himself in a pool. The Bastard of Vendome sold her to John of Luxembourg, and John of Luxembourg sold her to the English for 10,000 francs. Charles VII. and his friends did not raise a finger in her behalf. They forgot her at once, as a thing that had answered its purpose and was no longer of use.

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