Edward’s first task to bring these troubles to an end.  Age and experience had not diminished the ardour which had so long made Gaston of Bearn the focus of every trouble in the Pyrenean lands.  He defied a sentence of the ducal court of Saint Sever, and was already at war with the seneschal, Luke of Tany, when Edward’s appearance brought matters to a crisis.  During the autumn and winter of 1273-74, Edward hunted out Gaston from his mountain strongholds, and at last the Bearnais, despairing of open resistance, appealed to the French king.  Philip accepted the appeal, and ordered Edward to desist from molesting Gaston during its hearing.  The English king, anxious not to quarrel openly with the French court, granted a truce.  The suit of Gaston long occupied the parliament of Paris, but the good-will of the French lawyers could not palliate the wanton violence of the Viscount of Bearn.  The French, like the English, were sticklers for formal right, and were unwilling to push matters to extremities.  Edward had the reward of his forbearance, for Philip advised Gaston to go to England and make his submission.  Gratified by his restoration to Bearn in 1279, Gaston remained faithful for the next few years.  Edward was less successful in dealing with Limoges.  There had been for many years a struggle between the commune of the castle, or bourg, of Limoges and Margaret the viscountess.  It was to no purpose that the townsfolk had invoked the treaty of Paris, whereby, as they maintained, the French king transferred to the King of England his ancient jurisdiction over them.  They were answered by a decree of the parliament of Paris that the homage of the commune of Limoges belonged not to the crown but to the viscountess, and that therefore the treaty involved no change in their allegiance.  Edward threw himself with ardour on to the side of the burgesses.  Guy of Lusignan, still the agent of his brother abroad, though prudently excluded from England, was sent to Limoges, where he incited the commune to resist the viscountess.  In May, 1274, Edward himself took up his quarters in Limoges, and for a month ruled there as sovereign.  But the French court reiterated the decree which made the commune the vassal of the viscountess.  To persevere in upholding the rebels meant an open breach with the French court in circumstances more unfavourable than in the case of Gaston of Bearn.  Once more Edward refused to allow his ambition to prevail over his sense of legal obligation.  With rare self-restraint he renounced the fealty of Limoges, and abandoned his would-be subjects to the wrath of the viscountess.  This was an act of loyalty to feudal duty worthy of St. Louis.  If Edward, on later occasions, pressed his own legal claims against his vassals, he set in his own case a pattern of strict obedience to his overlord.