Arthur--as is most probable--was now really dead, whether he had indeed perished a victim of one of those fits of ungovernable fury in which (and in which alone) the Angevin counts sometimes added blunder to crime, or whether he had died a natural death from sickness in prison, or by a fall in attempting to escape,[405] it would be equally politic on John’s part to let rumour do its worst rather than suffer any gleam of light to penetrate the mystery which shrouded the captive’s fate. John’s chance, however, was a desperate one. A fortnight after Easter {April 20} the French king attacked and took Saumur.[406] Moving southward, he was joined by some Poitevins and Bretons, with whose help he captured sundry castles in Aquitaine. Thence he went back to the Norman border, to be welcomed at Alençon by its count, and to lay siege to Conches.[407] John, who was then at Falaise, sent William the Marshal to Conches, to beg that Philip would “have pity on him and make peace.” Philip refused; John hurried back to Rouen, to find both city and castle in flames[408]--whether kindled by accident or by treachery there is nothing to show. Conches was taken; Vaudreuil was betrayed; the few other castles in the county of Evreux which had not already passed, either by cession, conquest, or treason, into Philip’s hands shared the like fate,[409] while John flitted restlessly up and down between Rouen and various places in the neighbourhood,[410] but made no direct effort to check the progress of the invader. Messenger after messenger came to him with the same story: “The king of France is in your land as an enemy; he is taking your castles; he is binding your seneschals to their horses’ tails and dragging them shamefully to prison; he is dealing with your goods at his own pleasure.” John heard them all with an unmoved countenance, and dismissed them all with one unvarying reply: “Let him alone! Some day I shall win back all that he is winning from me now.”[411]