There is nothing more frightening than an angry woman who has lost her husband. French King Philip VI and his court aristocrats were convinced of this. During the Hundred Years' War, a Breton knight and wealthy landowner with his castle, Olivier de Clisson IV, sided with the king and France.

Olivier de Clisson participated in the so-called “War of Succession”, which was fought between two houses of noble aristocrats. On one side was Count Charles de Blois, who supported the French Crown. On the other side was Count John de Montfort, supported by England. The winner would gain control of the Duchy of Brittany.

Olivier de Clisson occupied the city of Vannes. The city changed hands more than once. During the last, the fourth siege, the French held the defense of the city for about six hours. In one of the sorties, Count de Clisson was captured by the English. And the French managed to capture Count Ralph de Stafford.

The French king's fifty thousand troops were already rushing to the aid of the besieged, but the intervention of Pope Clement VI stopped the war. A truce was concluded between the warring parties. The siege of Vannes was lifted. The English asked for a monstrously small ransom for Count de Clisson. This led French King Philip VI to think of treason.

After a truce for three years, which concluded on January 19, 1343 Olivier de Clisson and other fifteen Breton and Norman lords were invited to a tournament in France. But they were deceived. Instead of a tournament, they were arrested and taken to Paris, where Olivier de Clisson was executed along with several other knights.

That would have been the end of the story. But at Clisson's castle, his knight had a young wife waiting for him. For Jeanne de Belleville, it was her second marriage. The first time she married at the age of 12. The couple had two children. But soon her husband died.

Her first attempt at remarriage was unsuccessful. Jeanne married the Comte de Pintièvre, but relatives wishing to inherit demanded that the union be dissolved. The request was granted and the marriage was declared null and void.

The second full-fledged marriage could be considered the union of Jeanne with Olivier. They even had five children. But here is the husband accused of treason and executed in Paris. Jeanne even took her two older sons to the place of execution to show them the head of his father exposed to the public.

Jeanne called the execution a despicable murder, sold the Clisson estate and, gathering 400 loyal soldiers began to attack the French troops in Brittany. She managed to retake several garrisons that had previously been under her husband's control.

Subsequently, Jeanne acquired three fast ships, painted them black and hung red sails. These three ships attacked all French merchant ships in the Bay of Biscay and later in the English Channel. The pirates killed all crew members except for a couple of witnesses who had to tell who attacked them and why.

French nobles were especially unlucky. Usually, important people were kept alive for ransom. But Jeanne de Belleville wasn't interested in money. She took great pleasure in sending French nobles to the bottom. She was also not averse to attacking and pillaging coastal villages.

The most dangerous areas where pirates were operating were considered the mouth of the Gironde River, the coast near St. Mathieu, the Oleron Islands and Cape Pent du Ra, where numerous small islands of land helped pirates to hide or ambush. Jeanne de Belleville was nicknamed the Lioness of Brittany. The French king commissioned her to destroy the pirates.

Eventually the French fleet caught up with Jeanne's ships and even sank the flagship of the Black Fleet. The woman and her two sons were forced to swim adrift for several days. One of the sons, Guillaume, died of hypothermia.

Jeanne and her son Olivier were soon picked up by supporters of the Count of Montfort. Soon the Lioness was back to piracy. She terrorized the French merchant fleet for another thirteen years. Even after the death of King Philip of France, she would not rest. She had to take revenge on the Count de Montfort, who had called her husband a traitor.

It was not until 1350 that she married once again to the English king's military advisor, Knight Walter Bentley. Bentley won the Battle of Moron in 1352 for which he was rewarded with “lands and castles”. Jeanne herself eventually settled in the castle of Enbon in northwest Brittany under the control of Montfort. There she ended her life in 1359, having avenged her husband.