ous conflict.

The first woman whom we note in this period, Jeanne de Montfort, was a
veritable heroine of the wars, one known to us, through the enthusiastic
record of Froissart, as an amazon, but hardly known at all as a woman.
The only really interesting part of her career is that occurring during
the wars in Brittany, and so we shall begin her history with these
events. Marguerite, or Jeanne,--as she was called, perhaps because her
husband's name was Jean,--de Montfort, wife of the Count de Montfort,
was sister to the Count of Flanders. The countess, whom we shall call
Jeanne, was already a matron when events in her husband's native
Brittany called for his and her presence there. For generations,
Brittany had been ruled by a line of princes who were regarded by the
native population with far greater affection and respect than any king
of France could inspire; for they were of an ancient house, associated
with all the poetic legends of the land which, poets tell us, had been
of the domain of the noble King Arthur. Half of Brittany was rather
inclined to sympathy with France, owing to admixture of French blood,
while the other half, _Bretagne bretonnante_, clung to the Celtic
traditions and to those of England, the land once dominated by their
race across the channel; but Bretons of any part of Brittany were
Bretons first and always; the allegiance to their dukes was paramount;
that to the King of France was quite an afterthought.

When John III., Duke of Brittany and a descendant of that Pierre
Mauclerc who caused such serious trouble to Blanche de Castille, died
without issue in 1341, he left the succession to his duchy in a very
uncertain state. He himself had intended that the ducal crown should go
to his niece, Jeanne de Penthievre, the wife of Charles de Blois, rather
than to Jean de Montfort, who was only a half-brother on the mother's
side. To the ordinary mind it would seem that Jean de Montfort had at
least a reasonable claim; but the Count de Blois was a nephew of
Philippe VI., who would therefore throw all his influence against the
family of Montfort, long allied in one way or another with England.

Both Montfort and his wife realized that if the succession were left to
the adjudication of the French Court of Peers, their claim would receive
no consideration. Supported in his bold act by the ambitious and
courageous Jeanne, the Count de Montfort, immediately after his
half-brother's death, "went incontin