"Oh no," said the prince, "I am not in the least angry with you, but only with those that sent you hither. Your master, the King of France, has been exceedingly ill advised in thus pretending to claim jurisdiction over our dominion of Aquitaine, and in taking the part of our discontented subjects against us, their rightful sovereign. When he surrendered the provinces to the King of England, my father, as he did by solemn treaty, he relinquished forever all jurisdiction over them, and in the exercise of my government I acknowledge no superior except my father. Tell the King of France that is what I claim and will maintain. It shall cost a hundred thousand lives before it shall be otherwise." Having spoken these words in a calm and quiet, but very resolute and determined tone, the prince walked off out of the apartment, leaving the commissioners in a great state of astonishment and alarm. They seemed to know not what to do. Some of the courtiers came to them and advised them to withdraw. "It is useless," said they, "for you to attempt any thing more. You have delivered your message faithfully, and the prince has given his answer. It is the only answer that he will give, you may depend, and you may as well return with it to the king." So the messengers went back to the inn, and on the evening of the same day they set out on their return to Paris. In the mean time, Prince Edward continued to feel extremely indignant at the message which he had received. The more he reflected upon it, indeed, the more angry he became. He felt as if he had been insulted in having had such a summons from a foreign potentate served upon him by a lawyer in his own house. The knights and barons around him, sharing his anger, proposed that they should pursue and seize the commissioners, with a view of punishing them for their audacity in bringing such a message. At first the prince was unwilling to consent to this, as the persons of embassadors and messengers of all sorts sent from one sovereign to another were, in those days as now, considered sacred. At last, however, he said that he thought the men were hardly to be considered as the messengers of the King of France. "They are virtually," said he, "the messengers of D'Albret and the other factious and rebellious barons among our own subjects, who complained to the King of France and incited him to interfere in our affairs, and, as such, I should not be sorry to have them taken and punished." This was sufficient. The knights who heard it immediately sent off a small troop of horsemen, who overtook the commissioners before they reached the frontier. In order not to compromise the prince, they said nothing about having been sent by him, but arrested the men on a charge of having taken a horse which did not belong to them from the inn. Under pretense of investigating this charge, they took the men to a neighboring town and shut them up in a castle there.