The Sieur de Navailles had not attempted to join the Prince’s standard, as so many of the Gascon nobles had done, but had held sullenly aloof, probably watching and waiting to see the result of this expedition, but by no means prepared to adventure his person into the hands of a feudal lord against whom his own sword had more than once been drawn.  He was well aware, no doubt, that there were pages in his past history with regard to his relations with France that would not bear inspection by English eyes, and perhaps he trusted to the remoteness and obscurity of his two castles to save him from the notice of the Prince.

The terror inspired by the English arms in France is a thing that must always excite the wonder and curiosity of the readers of history.  It was displayed on and after the Battle of Crecy, when Edward’s army, if numbers counted for anything, ought to have been simply annihilated by the vast musters of the French, who were in their own land surrounded by friends, whilst the English were a small band in the midst of a hostile and infuriated population.  This same thing was seen again in the march of the Prince of Wales, soon to be called the Black Prince, when city after city bought him off, hopeless of resisting his progress; and when the army mustered by the Count of Armagnac to oppose the retreat of the English to Bordeaux with their spoil was seized with a panic after the merest skirmish, and fled, leaving the Prince to pursue his way unmolested.

If the conduct of the English army was somewhat inglorious, certainly the behaviour of their foes was still more so.  The English were always ready to fight if they could find an enemy to meet them.  Possibly the doubtful character of the Prince’s first campaign was less his fault than that of his pusillanimous enemies.

Bordeaux reached, however, and the Gascon soldiers dismissed to their homes for the winter months, the Prince promising to lead them next year upon a more glorious campaign, in which fresh spoil was to be won and more victories achieved, there was time for the consideration of objects of minor importance, and a breathing space wherein private interests could be considered.

Gaston had repressed all impatience during the march of the Prince.  He had not looked that his own affairs should take the foremost place in the Prince’s scheme.  Moreover, he saw well that it would give a false colour to the expedition if the first march of the Prince had been into Gascony; nor was the capture of so obscure a fortress as the Castle of Saut a matter to engross the energies of the whole of the allied army.

But now that the army was partially disbanded, whilst the English contingent was either in winter quarters in Bordeaux or engaged here and there in the capture of such cities and fortresses as the Prince decided worth the taking, the moment appeared to be favourable for that long-wished-for capture of Saut; and Gaston, taking his brother aside one day, eagerly opened to him his mind.