There was fighting in the field, too; here a skirmish, there an ambuscade, here again something that might pass for a battle. At Crevent-sur-Yonne, at Verneuil, the French (as we must now call Charles's followers) were defeated; at La Gravelle they were victorious. A pretty thing happened in connection with this last battle. In a castle hard by the field lived Anne de Laval, granddaughter of Bertrand du Guesclin. Hearing the clash of arms, seeing from her tower, it may be, French and English set in battle array, the lady sent for her twelve-year-old son, Andrew de Laval, and with trembling, yet eager hands, buckled round him the sword of the great Breton captain. "God make thee as valiant," she said, "as he whose sword this was!" and sent him to the field. The boy did good service that day; was knighted on the field of battle, and lived to carry out, as marshal of France, the promise of his childhood. Far north, perched like an eagle on a crag above the sea, stood _Mont St. Michel au peril de la mer_, the virgin fortress-abbey; a sacred spot even under the Druids; these many hundred years now one of the holy places of France, under special patronage of St. Michael, the archangel of Joan's vision. England greatly desired this coign of vantage; made overtures thereanent to the abbot, Robert Jolivet, who listened and finally promised to surrender the place to them. He went to Rouen to conclude the bargain. No sooner was he safely out of the abbey than the chapter of valiant monks elected one of their number, John Enault, vicar-general, shut and barred the gate (there was but one), raised the portcullis, and bade defiance to abbot and English. The latter found that the friendly churchman had exaggerated his own powers, and theirs. Surrounded by wide-spreading quicksands, its sheer walls buffeted day and night by the Atlantic surges, Mont St. Michel could be taken only by treachery, and the one traitor was now safely barred out. Aided by some valiant Norman warriors who chanced to be in the abbey on pilgrimage or other business, the monks of St. Michael, worthy of their warlike patron, held their fortress for eight long years against all assaults, preserving it inviolate for their rightful king. Far to southward, La Rochelle, "proud city of the waters," made like resistance to the invaders. The Rochellais knew the English of old. John Lackland had landed there when he came in 1214 to try to recover certain lands seized by Philip Augustus shortly before. It remained in English hands till 1224, when it was captured by Louis VIII.; was restored by treaty to the English in 1360; finally shook off the foreign yoke in Du Guesclin's time. Now it was one of the great maritime cities of France, its mariners sailing all seas, hardy and bold as Drake or Magellan.