Now the Count de Blois well foresaw that the countess once delivered into his hands with the child John de Montfort, the war was at an end for ever; and, without tarrying at Rennes when he had taken it, he marched direct upon Hennebon, to take it if he might by assault, and if not, to sit down before it; and the numbers of his host without was, as by thousands to hundreds of those within; and there were among them many great names for valor and for prowess—but there was that within which without was lacking, the indomitable heart, the immortal love of a true woman. It was a little before noon on the 20th day of May, 1342, when the vanguard of that great host might be seen from the walls of Hennebon; and a beautiful sight it was to see them come; to behold the pennons and pennoncelles, the helmets and habergeons, the plumes and surcoats, flashing and shimmering in the sunshine, and waving in the light airs; and such numbers of men-at-arms that the eye might not compass them; all marshaled fairly beneath the square banners of their lordly and princely leaders, so that they seemed like a moving forest, so upright did they hold their lances. Then came the dense array, on foot, of the Genoese cross-bows, in their plate coats of Italian steel, with terrible arbalests; and the unrivaled infantry of Spain, a solid column, bristling like the Greek phalanx of old, with serried lines of spears. The earth shook under the thick thunder of their horse-hoofs; the air was alive with the clash and clang of their steel harness; and all the echoes rang with the shrill flourishes of their trumpets, and the stormy roar of their kettle-drums. But no terror did such sights or sounds strike to the hearts of that undaunted garrison—the deafening clang of the alarm-bells, the tremendous tocsin answered the kettle-drums and clarions; and all within the city armed themselves in hot haste. The flower of the French and Spanish chivalry galloped up to skirmish at the barriers, and the iron bolts and quarrels of the Genoese cross-bows fell like a hail-storm, even within the ramparts. But ere that fierce storm had endured many minutes, up grated the portcullises, down rattled the drawbridges, and as the barriers were withdrawn—banners and spears, and barded destriers and knightly burgonets poured out from all the city gates at once, and burst in full career upon the skirmishers of the besiegers; then many a knight was borne to earth, and the chivalry of France and Spain fared ill before the lances of the Bretons; for they could not bide the brunt, but scattered back, dismantled and discomfited, to their main body; while the maces and two-handed glaives and battle-axes of the men-at-arms did bloody execution on the Genoese, who were not armed to encounter the charge of steel-clad horse, and to whom no quarter was given, not only that they were foreigners and _Condottieri_, but that themselves sparing none, they neither looked for, nor received mercy.