Whilst the two Joans were exhibiting in Brittany, for the preservation or the recovery of their little dominion, so much energy and persistency, another Joan, no princess, but not the less a heroine, was, in no other interest than the satisfaction of her love and her vengeance, making war, all by herself, on the same territory.  Several Norman and Breton lords, and amongst others Oliver de Clisson and Godfrey d’Harcourt, were suspected, nominally attached as they were to the King of France, of having made secret overtures to the King of England.  Philip of Valois had them arrested at a tournament, and had them beheaded without any form of trial, in the middle of the market-place at Paris, to the number of fourteen.  The head of Clisson was sent to Nantes and exposed on one of the gates of the city.  At the news thereof, his widow, Joan of Belleville, attended by several men of family, her neighbors and friends, set out for a castle occupied by the troops of Philip’s candidate, Charles of Blois.  The fate of Clisson was not yet known there; it was supposed that his wife was on a hunting excursion; and she was admitted without distrust.  As soon as she was inside, the blast of a horn gave notice to her followers, whom she had left concealed in the neighboring woods.  They rushed up, and took possession of the castle, and Joan de Clisson had all the inhabitants—­but one—­put to the sword.  But this was too little for her grief and her zeal.  At the head of her troops, augmented, she scoured the country and seized several places, everywhere driving out or putting to death the servants of the King of France.  Philip confiscated the property of the house of Clisson.  Joan moved from land to sea.  She manned several vessels, attacked the French ships she fell in with, ravaged the coasts, and ended by going and placing at the service of the Countess of Montfort her hatred and her son, a boy of seven years of age, whom she had taken with her in all her expeditions, and who was afterwards the great constable, Oliver de Clisson.  We shall find him under Charles V. and Charles VI. as devoted to France and her kings as if he had not made his first essays in arms against the candidate of their ancestor, Philip.  His mother had sent him to England, to be brought up at the court of Edward III., but, shortly after taking a glorious part with the English in the battle of Auray, in which he lost an eye, and which secured the duchy of Brittany to the Count of Montfort, De Clisson got embroiled none the less with his suzerain, who had given John Chandos the castle of Gavre, near Nantes.  “Devil take me, my lord,” said Oliver to him, “if ever Englishman shall be my neighbor;” and he went forthwith and attacked the castle, which he completely demolished.  The hatreds of women whose passions have made them heroines of war are more personal and more obstinate than those of the roughest warriors.  Accordingly the war for the duchy of Brittany, in the fourteenth century, has been called, in history, the war of the three Joans.