So died Du Guesclin, the Hero of Chivalry, a man with many failings, but brave and generous beyond comparison, and ever faithful to his friends. Although the violence of his temper broke out at intervals all his life long, he could be kind and gentle. Queens and princesses esteemed him for his respectful courtesy, and we like to read, how, when the Black Prince summoned him to his presence, the stern warrior was found playing merrily with his gaoler's children, inside the dreary walls of his prison.
Some authors assert that the governor of the Castle of Randan only laid the keys on the coffin of Du Guesclin; but the most probable account is that he really gave them into his hands before he died.
Charles the Wise grieved sincerely for the loss the country had sustained, and ordered the remains of the Constable to be interred in the Church of Saint Denis with almost regal pomp.
Jeanne de Laval, the second wife of Du Guesclin, founded several religious houses, and instituted services in memory of her illustrious husband.
[11] The green knight fell in this battle.
Christopher Columbo, or Columbus, was born in the city of Genoa, about the year 1436. His father, Domenico Columbo, earned the bread of his family by combing wool, which, however lowly it may be thought at the present time, was once a very honourable occupation, and was invented three hundred years after the birth of our Lord by Blaise, the good martyr-bishop of Armenia, who to this day is regarded as the patron of woolcombers.
Christopher had two brothers, Bartholomew, and Diego, and one sister; of the latter there is nothing particular recorded. The three brothers loved one another dearly. Bartholomew had a brave and ardent spirit, and was fond of an active life; in the troubles and dangers they shared in after years Christopher would call him "another self;" and he said not long before he died that his brothers had always been his best friends. Christopher as a child was quiet and thoughtful. He loved to stand on the shore of the beautiful bay spreading out at the feet of Genoa, "the city of marble palaces," and to watch the waves under their different aspects; now dancing joyously in the sunshine; then great sea-horses, foaming and dashing with terrible noise on the sands; now again, loveliest of all, lying at rest as if tired, in the solemn quiet of night, and giving back myriads of golden gleams for every star that twinkled in the clear Italian sky. And whilst Christopher thus watched the sea, he had very strange ideas for a young child, for he thought that the whole of the world had not been discovered, and that beyond the great Atlantic Ocean, which he had only heard of, there were lands that had never yet been trodden by Europeans. At the time he lived the Portuguese had discovered the Cape Verde Isles in the Atlantic, much of the western coast of Africa, and the Cape of Good Hope. They wanted some of the gold, amber, and ivory, the rich silks, and the fragrant woods and spices of India, and to trade in these things they had to find out a way to the East by sea, because the Venetians took care to keep the overland route to India clear for themselves. Venice, on the eastern side of Italy, and Genoa, on the western side, shared all the commerce of that country, but they were not on friendly terms; and for years and years the Genoese were trying to drive the Turks, Venetians, and Spaniards out of the Mediterranean Sea, that they might carry on their own commerce without being molested.