Having fallen sick before Chateauneuf-Randon, a place he was besieging in the Gevaudan, Du Guesclin expired on the 13th of July, 1380, at sixty-six years of age, and his last words were an exhortation to the veteran captains around him "never to forget that, in whatsoever country they might be making war, churchmen, women, children, and the poor people were not their enemies." According to certain contemporary chronicles, or, one might almost say, legends, Chateauneuf-Randon was to be given up the day after Du Guesclin died.

The marshal De Sancerre, who commanded the king's army, summoned the governor to surrender the place to him; but the governor replied that he had given his word to Du Guesclin, and would surrender to no other.
He was told of the constable's death: "Very well," he rejoined, "I will carry the keys of the town to his tomb." To this the marshal agreed; the governor marched out of the place at the head of his garrison, passed through the besieging army, went and knelt down before Du Guesclin's corpse, and actually laid the keys of Chateauneuf-Randon on his bier.
[Illustration: Putting the Keys on Du Guesclin's Bier----407] This dramatic story is not sufficiently supported by authentic documents to be admitted as an historical fact; but there is to be found in an old chronicle concerning Du Guesclin [published for the first time at the end of the fifteenth century, and in a new edition by M.Francisque Michel in 1830] a story which, in spite of many discrepancies, confirms the principal fact of the keys of Chateauneuf-Randon being brought by the garrison to the bier.

"At the decease of Sir Bertrand," says the chronicler, "a great cry arose throughout the host of the French.

The English refused to give up the castle.

The marshal, Louis de Sancerre, had the hostages brought to the ditches, for to have their heads struck off.