A new opening had presented itself to him upon the French territory. John III., duke of Brittany, had died without issue in 1341, and his brother, John de Montfort, had immediately seized the treasury, as well as several important towns. But Joan of Penthièvre, otherwise Joan the Lame, wife of Charles, Count of Blois, claimed the duchy as the daughter of Guy de Montfort, a younger brother of the deceased duke. The Count of Blois was the nephew of Philip of Valois, and he had invoked the aid of his uncle. Montfort had been summoned to Paris to render an account of his claims. After having appeared before the king, he had fled secretly, and his first care was to repair to London, there to do homage to the King of England in respect to Brittany. Edward had promised to support him, but already a French army had marched into Brittany. John de Montfort had been captured at Nantes, and his wife, Joan of Flanders, had with difficulty contrived to escape with her son to the castle of Hennebon, where she was besieged by the Duke of Normandy. {297} The countess "had indeed the heart of a man and a lion," says Froissart, and she valiantly encouraged her partisans, while waiting the succor which she had demanded from England. The wind was unfavorable; the English vessels did not arrive, and treachery began to do its work in the town, when Joan, leaning on her casement, perceived sails in the horizon. "Behold there! behold there!" she cried, "the succor which I have so long desired." The rising tide brought to her Gautier de Manny, a valiant knight of Hainault, who had become a faithful servant to the King of England, and one of the most illustrious amongst his warriors. He was accompanied by a goodly number of knights and men-at-arms, and soon caused the siege to be raised. But the war continued in Lower Brittany. With singular inconsistency, the King of France, who owed his elevation to the throne to the Salic law, was maintaining in Brittany the cause of female succession, while Edward was defending the rights of the male sex, which he had refused to recognize in the case of Philip of Valois. An armistice enabled the Countess de Montfort to cross over to England to obtain reinforcements. When she returned to Brittany, she was accompanied by Robert of Artois, brother-in-law of King Philip and his mortal enemy. The town of Vannes was captured and recaptured. Robert of Artois, wounded, succeeded, although not without great difficulty, in escaping to England, there to die at the very moment when Edward was setting sail with the resolution of directing the war in Brittany in person. He landed in the month of October, 1343, at Hennebon, with twelve thousand men, and immediately laid siege to Vannes, Rennes, and Nantes, with no other result than the devastation of the country, already overrun by so many enemies, and the retreat of Charles of Blois, whose forces had been greatly reduced. {298}