On the crowded canvas of the fourteenth century stands out as one of its
most prominent figures that of the warrior Countess of Montfort. No
reader of Froissart's Chronicle can forget the siege of Hennebon, and
the valiant part she played in the defence of her son's dominions.
Actuated by more personal motives than the peasant maid, she was
nevertheless the Joan of Arc of her day, and of Bretagne.
What became of her?
After the restoration of her son, we see no more of that brave and
tender mother. She drops into oblivion. Her work was done. Those who
have thought again of her at all have accepted without question the only
extant answer--the poor response of a contemporary romance, according to
which she dwelt in peace, and closed an honoured and cherished life in a
castle in the duchy of her loving and grateful son.
It has been reserved for the present day to find the true reply--to draw
back the veil from the "bitter close of all," and to show that the
hardest part of her work began when she laid down her sword, and the
ending years of her life were the saddest and weariest portion. Never
since the days of Lear has such a tale been told of a parent's sacrifice
and of a child's ingratitude. In the royal home of the Duke of
Bretagne, there was no room for her but for whose love and care he would
have been a homeless fugitive. The discarded mother was imprisoned in a
foreign land, and left to die.
Let us hope that as it is supposed in the story, the lonely, broken
heart turned to a truer love than that of her cherished and cruel son--
even to His who says "My mother" of all aged women who seek to do the
will of God, and who will never forsake them that trust in Him.