houses of Foix and Béarn. The new Foix-Béarn were in a delicate situation, with Béarn on the one hand a vassal of the kings of England, and Foix a vassal of the kings of France. The beginnings of the future Hundred Years' War between the two kingdoms were already coming, complicating the balance within this new dynasty even more. Until Gaston II of Foix-Béarn, the position of the sovereigns of Béarn oscillated between neutrality and following the French positions (without paying tribute). The people of Bearn were reluctant to follow a policy favourable to the kings of France, they felt that they belonged to the Gascon community and saw the kingdom of France as a foreign land. It was not until Gaston III, known as Fébus, that a new policy appeared: to make Bearn a sovereign and neutral country. Fébus' project was the culmination of the long periods of autonomy experienced by Béarn in previous eras. Now in the midst of the Hundred Years' War, Fébus took advantage of the French rout of Crécy in 1346 to distance himself from the kingdom of France. On 25 September 1347, he declared to an envoy of Philip VI that Bearn was a land that he "had from God and from no man in the world", an act considered to be a declaration of independence. Subsequently, he avoided French reprisals with the disaster of the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. Fébus also managed to ward off English intentions for Bearn. To do this, he faced the Black Prince, who claimed Bearn as a prince of Aquitaine. After the French and English failures to obtain a tribute, the autonomous viscounty becomes a de facto sovereign principality. The viscounts gave up this title to present themselves as lords of the sovereign country of Bearn. When Fébus died without an heir, the principality reverted to the House of Grailly. In 1434, Gaston IV married the Infanta Eleanor of Navarre and became crown prince of the kingdom of Navarre, transferring his court from Orthez to Pau in 1464. Transport Road Béarn is served by two autoroutes. The A64 (l'autoroute pyrénéenne, European designation E80) was built in 1977 and links Pau, Toulouse and Bayonne. In Béarn, the A64 has junctions serving the towns of Salies-de-Béarn, Orthez, Artix, Pau and Soumoulou. The A65 (l'autoroute de Gascogne, European designation E7) links Pau with Langon. It serves the Béarnese towns of