respect any well-considered resolution, or any well-defined aim in their movements.  They made first for Avignon, and Pope Urban V., on hearing of their approach, was somewhat disquieted, and sent to them one of his cardinals to ask them what was their will.  If we may believe the poet-chronicler, Cuvelier, the mission was anything but pleasing to the cardinal, who said to one of his confidants, “I am grieved to be set to this business, for I am sent to a pack of madmen who have not an hour’s, nay, not even half-an-hour’s conscience.”  The captains replied that they were going to fight the heathen either in Cyprus or in the kingdom of Granada, and that they demanded of the pope absolution of their sins and two hundred thousand livres, which Du Guesclin had promised them in his name.  The pope cried out against this.  “Here,” said he, “at Avignon, we have money given us for absolution, and we must give it gratis to yonder folks, and give them money also:  it is quite against reason.”  Du Guesclin insisted.  “Know you,” said he to the cardinal, “that there are in this army many folks who care not a whit for absolution, and who would much rather have money; we are making them proper men in spite of themselves, and are leading them abroad that they may do no mischief to Christians.  Tell that to the pope; for else we could not take them away.”  The pope yielded, and gave them the two hundred thousand livres.  He obtained the money by levies upon the population of Avignon.  They, no doubt, complained loudly, for the chiefs of the Grand Company were informed thereof, and Du Guesclin said, “By the faith that I owe to the Holy Trinity, I will not take a denier of that which these poor folks have given; let the pope and the clerics give us of their own; we desire that all they who have paid the tax do recover their money without losing a doit; “and, according to contemporary chronicles, the vagabond army did not withdraw until they had obtained this satisfaction.  The piety of the middle ages, though sincere, was often less disinterested and more rough than it is commonly represented.

On arriving at Toulouse from Avignon, Du Guesclin and his bands, with a strength, it is said, of thirty thousand men, took the decided resolution of going into Spain to support the cause of Prince Henry of Transtamare against the King of Castile his brother, Don Pedro the Cruel.  The Duke of Anjou, governor of Languedoc, gave them encouragement, by agreement, no doubt with King Charles V., and from anxiety on his own part to rid his province of such inconvenient visitors.  On the 1st of January, 1366, Du Guesclin entered Barcelona, whither Henry of Transtamare came to join him.  There is no occasion to give a detailed account here of that expedition, which appertains much more to the history of Spain than to that of France.  There was a brief or almost no struggle.  Henry of Transtamare was crowned king, first at Calahorra, and afterwards at Burgos.  Don Pedro, as much