Du Guesclin continued in the service of Charles. The last years of his life it is impossible to describe, so contradictory are his biographers. Some declare that the calumnies of Parisian courtiers deprived him of the favour of Charles, and that he lost his office of Constable. However this may have been, it is certain that in the year 1380 he commanded the French troops in Auvergne, and went to lay siege to Randan, a little fortress some leagues from Mendes, in the Govandau, between the sources of the Lot and the Alleir. The place, until then so little known, immediately became famous, in French history, for the loss which France sustained before its walls of one of her prowest knights. Du Guesclin, who, according to the wont of chivalry, had vowed not to sheath his sword while an enemy's lance was raised, pressed the siege with vigour, when he was attacked by a malady which was soon found to be mortal. He beheld the approach of death with Christian intrepidity, and he died while exhorting the knights around his bed to the duties of devotion to God, loyalty to the King, and mercy to those who were the objects of war. It was his wish to be buried at Dinan, in Brittany, but the King commanded the abbey of St. Denys to be the place[155]; and in kindness and gratitude, he was anxious that a lamp should always hang over the tomb, in order that posterity might never lose remembrance of his great deeds.[156] The epitaph, on account of its simplicity, deserves mention. "Ici gist noble homme Messire Bertrand du Guesclin, Comte de Longueville, et Connétable de France, qui trepassa au chastel neuf de Randan en Gisaudan, en la Sénéchaussée de Beauncaire, le 13 jour de Juillet, 1380. Priez Dieu pour lui."[157]