in the open country as well as in the towns, turning to profitable account the inclinations of the Breton population, whom the presence and the ravages of the English had turned against John of Montfort and his cause.  She even convoked at Dinan, in 1352, a general assembly of her partisans, which is counted by the Breton historians as the second holding of the states of their country.  During nine years, from 1347 to 1356, the two Joans were the two heads of their parties in politics and in war.  Charles of Blois at last obtained his liberty from Edward III. on hard conditions, and returned to Brittany to take up the conduct of his own affairs.  The struggle between the two claimants still lasted eight years, with vicissitudes ending in nothing definite.  In 1363 Charles of Blois and young John of Montfort, weary of their fruitless efforts and the sufferings of their countries, determined both of them to make peace and share Brittany between them.  Rennes was to be Charles’s capital, and Nantes that of his rival.  The treaty had been signed, an altar raised between the two armies, and an oath taken on both sides; but when Joan of Penthivre was informed of it she refused downright to ratify it.  “I married you,” she said to her husband, “to defend my inheritance, and not to yield the half of it; I am only a woman, but I would lose my life, and two lives if I had them, rather than consent to any cession of the kind.”  Charles of Blois, as weak before his wife as brave before the enemy, broke the treaty he had but just sworn to, and set out for Nantes to resume the war.  “My lord,” said Countess Joan to him in presence of all his knights, “you are going to defend my inheritance and yours, which my lord of Montfort—­wrongfully, God knows—­doth withhold from us, and the barons of Brittany who are here present know that I am rightful heiress of it.  I pray you affectionately not to make any ordinance, composition, or treaty whereby the duchy corporate remain not ours.”  Charles set out; and in the following year, on the 29th of September, 1364, the battle of Auray cost him his life and the countship of Brittany.  When he was wounded to death he said, “I have long been at war against my conscience.”  At sight of his dead body on the field of battle young John of Montfort, his conqueror, was touched, and cried out, “Alas my cousin, by your obstinacy you have been the cause of great evils in Brittany:  may God forgive you!  It grieves me much that you are come to so sad an end.”  After this outburst of generous compassion came the joy of victory, which Montfort owed above all to his English allies and to John Chandos their leader, to whom, “My Lord John,” said he, “this great fortune path come to me through your great sense and prowess:  wherefore, I pray you, drink out of my cup.”  “Sir,” answered Chandos, “let us go hence, and render you your thanks to God for this happy fortune you have gotten, for, without the death of yonder warrior, you could not have come into the inheritance of Brittany.”  From that day forth John of Monfort remained in point of fact Duke of Brittany, and Joan of Penthievre, the Cripple, the proud princess who had so obstinately defended her rights against him, survived for full twenty years the death of her husband and the loss of her duchy.