hich Montfort presented himself
before the king did not have the effect of intimidating the latter, if
it had been so intended, and Montfort moderated his tone in the
interview with Philippe, denying positively that he had sworn fealty to
Edward III., and merely urging his rights as nearest of kin to the late
Duke of Brittany. Philippe appointed a day for the meeting of the Court
of Peers to sit in judgment on the claims of the two heirs, and forbade
Montfort to leave Paris during the next fifteen days. Montfort saw, from
the reception accorded him by the crafty Philippe, that his case was
already judged; "he sat and imagined many doubts"; if he remained in
Paris and the verdict of the Peers went against him there was the
certainty of arrest and imprisonment until he should have made an
accounting for the treasure seized at Limoges and delivered up all the
towns he had captured. Therefore he determined upon the course that
would at least give him a chance of active resistance if the worst came
to the worst; he fled from Paris secretly, and was with his wife in
Nantes before the king was aware that the bird had flown. The event
justified his distrust, for on September 7, 1341, the Court of Peers
adjudged the duchy of Brittany to Jeanne de Penthievre and Charles de
Blois.

By the aid and counsel of his wife Montfort gathered his forces and
garrisoned the towns he had taken, while Charles de Blois led a French
army against him and soon had him beleaguered in Nantes. The events of
this siege would not concern us, since the Countess Jeanne was not in
Nantes, were it not for the peculiar interest attaching to certain
episodes and the light they throw upon the remarkable character of
Charles de Blois. This man was reputed a saint in his own day, so much
so that, under Pope Urban V., an inquiry was held and a favorable report
made but never acted upon for a formal canonization. We learn some most
curious things from _The Life and Miracles of Charles, Duke of Brittany,
of the House of France_, in regard to what was in those days considered
evidence of saintliness. "He confessed himself morning and evening, and
heard mass four or five times daily.... Did he meet a priest, down he
flung himself from his horse upon his knees in the mud.... He put
pebbles in his shoes." When he prayed he beat himself in the breast till
he turned black in the face. Next his skin he wore a coarse garment of
sackcloth, and "he did not change his sackcl