1432, Maine county, south of Normandy A Norman squire named Guillaume de Saint-Aubin was quartered in a village of Maine called Losengière, with some sixty to eighty fighting men resisting against English rule. One night, the English of the Mayenne-la-Juhel garrison came to attack his lodgings. Both sides fought very valiantly, and in the end the English were routed. Among the French was a man-at-arms known as the Bastard Bois-à-Prestre, who after the skirmish had hidden himself in a bush for ambush. Later, two fleeing Englishmen crept into that very same bush. When the Bastard noticed them, he asked: "Who is there?" The Englishmen, with great surprised, replied that they surrendered to him and begged him to spare their lives. Realizing that the English had been defeated, he led his two prisoners to Saint-Aubin and his companions, who had fought valiantly. When Saint-Aubin learned what had happened, he took the two English prisoners away from him. The matter was brought before the knight Ambroise de Loré, marshal of the Duke of Alençon, under whose command they served. He ruled that the Bastard would have no claim whatsoever on the two prisoners. Had it not been for the support of some of his friends, he would have had him severely punished for this misdeed.

"Before becoming partisan warriors, they were the King's men" One of the legendary duos in French military history during the Hundred Years' War: Étienne de Vignolles, nicknamed "La Hire", and Poton de Xaintrailles. Both hailing from the minor Gascon nobility of southern France in the XVth century, they were recruited by the faction leader Count Bernard VII of Armagnac to fight in the French civil war against the Burgundians. Unknowingly, they were destined to become the embodiment of the ideal warrior and to lead hundreds of men for nearly thirty years. From ambushes, surprise captures, and the infiltration of strongholds and cities to cavalry charges, this nearly inseparable duo became indispensable to the cause of King Charles VII, both before and after the time of Joan of Arc. Having not learned to read or write, their activities consisted of serving their king and striking down enemies : the Burgundians and English. Both rose to become great military commanders; Xaintrailles even attained the rank of Marshal of France. Long forgotten, they have been the subject of ongoing study by historians from the XIXth century to the present day, all seeking to uncover the details of their lives and exploits. I dedicate this historical art project, created with my great friend @MHInventory , to the French medievalist historian Christophe Furon, who spent years traveling across France conducting extensive archival research to reconstruct the lives of these two figures. Though he nearly abandoned the project, he persevered, ultimately restoring their honor and highlighting this duo in an ambitious thesis.