Such was the young prince's condition that, almost every day, he was
reduced to the necessity of dining with his most dangerous and most
hypocritical enemy.  A man of family, devoted to the dauphin, who was now
called regent, Philip de Repenti by name, lost his head on the 19th of
March, 1358, on the market-place, for having attempted, with a few bold
comrades, "to place the regent beyond the power and the reach of the
people of Paris."  Six days afterwards, however, on the 25th of March,
the dauphin succeeded in escaping, and repaired first of all to Senlis,
and then to Provins, where he found the estates of Champagne eager to
welcome him.  Marcel at once sent to Provins two deputies with
instructions to bind over the three orders of Champagne "to be at one
with them of Paris, and not to be astounded at what had been done."
Before answering, the members of the estates withdrew into a garden to
parley together, and sent to pray the regent to come and meet them.  "My
lord," said the Count de Braine to him in the name of the nobility, "did
you ever suffer any harm or villany at the hands of De Conflans, Marshal
of Champagne, for which he deserved to be put to death as he hath been by
them of Paris?  "The prince replied that he firmly held and believed that
the said marshal and Robert de Clermont had well and loyally served and
advised him.  "My lord," replied the Count de Braine, "we Champagnese who
are here do thank you for that which you have just said, and do desire
you to do full justice on those who have put our friend to death without
cause;" and they bound themselves to support him with their persons and
their property, for the chastisement of them who had been the authors of
the outrage.

The dauphin, with full trust in this manifestation and this promise,
convoked at Compiegne, for the 4th of May, 1858, no longer the estates of
Champagne only, but the states-general in their entirety, who, on
separating at the close of their last session, had adjourned to the 1st
of May following.  The story of this fresh session, and of the events
determined by it, is here reproduced textually, just as it has come down
to us from the last continuer of the Chronicle of William of Nangis, the
most favorable amongst all the chroniclers of the time to Stephen Marcel
and the popular party in Paris.  "All the deputies, and especially the
friends of the nobles slain, did with one heart and one mind counsel the
lord Charles, Duke of Normandy, to have the homicides stricken to death;
and, if he could not do so by reason of the number of their defenders,
they urged him to lay vigorous siege to the city of Paris, either with an
armed force or by forbidding the entry of victuals thereinto, in such
sort that it should understand and perceive for a certainty that the
death of the provost of tradesmen and of his accomplices was intended.
The said provost and those who, after the regent's departure, had taken
the government of the city, clearly understood this intention, and they
then implored the University of studies at Paris to send deputies to the
said lord-regent, to humbly adjure him, in their name and in the name of
the whole city, to banish from his heart the wrath he had conceived
against their fellow-citizens, offering and promising, moreover, a
suitable reparation for the offence, provided that the lives of the
persons were spared.  The University, concerned for the welfare of the
city, sent several deputies of weight to treat about the matter.  They
were received by the lord Duke Charles and the other lords with great
kindness; and they brought back word to Paris that the demand made at
Compiegne was, that ten or a dozen, or even only five or six, of the men
suspected of the crime lately committed at Paris should be sent to
Compiegne, where there was no design of putting them to death, and, if
this were done, the duke-regent would return to his old and intimate
friendship with the Parisians.  But Provost Marcel and his accomplices,
who were afeard for themselves, did not believe that if they fell into
the hands of the lord duke they could escape a terrible death, and they
had no mind to run such a risk.  Taking, therefore, a bold resolution,
they desired to be treated as all the rest of the citizens, and to that
end sent several deputations to the lord-regent either to Compiegne or to
Meaux, whither he sometimes removed; but they got no gracious reply, and
rather words of bitterness and threatening.  Thereupon, being seized with
alarm for their city, into the which the lord-regent and his noble
comrades were so ardently desirous of re-entering, and being minded to
put it out of reach from the peril which threatened it, they began to
fortify themselves therein, to repair the walls, to deepen the ditches,
to build new ramparts on the eastern side, and to throw up barriers at
all the gates.  .  .  .  As they lacked a captain, they sent to Charles
the Bad, King of Navarre, who was at that time in Normandy, and whom they
knew to be freshly embroiled with the regent; and they requested him to
come to Paris with a strong body of men-at-arms, and to be their captain
there and their defender against all their foes, save the lord John, King
of, France, a prisoner in England.  The King of Navarre, with all his
men, was received in state, on the 15th of June, by the Parisians, to the
great indignation of the prince-regent, his friends, and many others.
The nobles thereupon began to draw near to Paris, and to ride about in
the fields of the neighborhood, prepared to fight if there should be a
sortie from Paris to attack them.  .  .  .  On a certain day the
besiegers came right up to the bridge of Charenton, as if to draw out the
King of Navarre and the Parisians to battle.  The King of Navarre issued
forth, armed, with his men, and drawing near to the besiegers, had long
conversations with them without fighting, and afterwards went back into
Paris.  At sight hereof the Parisians suspected that this king, who was
himself a noble, was conspiring with the besiegers, and was preparing to
deal some secret blow to the detriment of Paris; so they conceived
mistrust of him and his, and stripped him of his office of captain.  He
went forth sore vexed from Paris, he and his; and the English especially,
whom he had brought with him, insulted certain Parisians, whence it
happened that before they were out of the city several of them were
massacred by the folks of Paris, who afterwards confined themselves
within their walls, carefully guarding the gates by day, and by night
keeping up strong patrols on the ramparts."

Whilst Marcel inside Paris, where he reigned supreme, was a prey, on his
own account and that of his besieged city, to these anxieties and perils,
an event occurred outside which seemed to open to him a prospect of
powerful aid, perhaps of decisive victory.  Throughout several provinces
the peasants, whose condition, sad and hard as it already was under the
feudal system, had been still further aggravated by the outrages and
irregularities of war, not finding any protection in their lords, and
often being even oppressed by them as if they had been foes, had recourse
to insurrection in order to escape from the evils which came down upon
them every day and from every quarter.

They bore and would bear anything, it was said, and they got the name of
Jacques Bonhomme (Jack Goodfellow); but this taunt they belied in a
terrible manner.  We will quote from the last continuer of William of
Nangis, the least declamatory and the least confused of all the
chroniclers of that period: "In this same year 1358," says he, "in the
summer [the first rising took place on the 28th of May], the peasants in
the neighborhood of St. Loup de Cerent and Clermont, in the diocese of
Beauvais, took up arms against the nobles of France.  They assembled in
great numbers, set at their head a certain peasant named William Karle
[or Cale, or Callet], of more intelligence than the rest, and marching by
companies under their own flag, roamed over the country, slaying and
massacring all the nobles they met, even their own lords.  Not content
with that, they demolished the houses and castles of the nobles; and,
what is still more deplorable, they villanously put to death the noble
dames and little children who fell into their hands; and afterwards they
strutted about, they and their wives, bedizened with the garments they
had stripped from their victims.  The number of men who had thus risen
amounted to five thousand, and the rising extended to the outskirts of
Paris.  They had begun it from sheer necessity and love of justice, for
their lords oppressed instead of defending them; but before long they
proceeded to the most hateful and criminal deeds.  They took and
destroyed from top to bottom the strong castle of Ermenonville, where
they put to death a multitude of men and dames of noble family who had
taken refuge there.  For some time the nobles no longer went about as
before; none of them durst set a foot outside the fortified places."
Jacquery had taken the form of a fit of demagogic fury, and the Jacks [or
Goodfellows] swarming out of their hovels were the terror of the castles.

Had Marcel provoked this bloody insurrection?  There is strong
presumption against him; many of his contemporaries say he had; and the
dauphin himself wrote on the 30th of August, 1359, to the Count of Savoy,
that one of the most heinous acts of Marcel and his partisans was
exciting the folks of the open country in France, of Beauvaisis and
Champagne, and other districts, against the nobles of the said kingdom;
whence so many evils have proceeded as no man should or could conceive."
It is quite certain, however, that, the insurrection having once broken
out, Marcel hastened to profit by it, and encouraged and even supported
it at several points.  Amongst other things he sent from Paris a body of
three hundred men to the assistance of the peasants who were besieging
the castle of Ermenonville.  It is the due penalty paid by reformers who
allow themselves to drift into revolution, that they become before long
accomplices in mischief or crime which their original design and their
own personal interest made it incumbent on them to prevent or repress.

The reaction against Jaequery was speedy and shockingly bloody.  The
nobles, the dauphin, and the King of Navarre, a prince and a noble at the
same time that he was a scoundrel, made common cause against the
Goodfellows, who were the more disorderly in proportion as they had
become more numerous, and believed themselves more invincible.  The
ascendency of the masters over the rebels was soon too strong for
resistance.  At Meaux, of which the Goodfellows had obtained possession,
they were surprised and massacred to the number, it is said, of seven
thousand, with the town burning about their ears.  In Beauvaisis, the
King of Navarre, after having made a show of treating with their
chieftain, William Karle or Callet, got possession of him, and had him
beheaded, wearing a trivet of red-hot iron, says one of the chroniclers,
by way of crown.  He then moved upon a camp of Goodfellows assembled near
Montdidier, slew three thousand of them, and dispersed the remainder.
These figures are probably very much exaggerated, as nearly always
happens in such accounts; but the continuer of William of Nangis, so
justly severe on the outrages and barbarities of the insurgent peasants,
is not less so on those of their conquerors.  "The nobles of France," he
says, "committed at that time such ravages in the district of Meaux that
there was no need for the English to come and destroy our country those
mortal enemies of the kingdom could not have done what was done by the
nobles at home."

Marcel from that moment perceived that his cause was lost, and no longer
dreamed of anything but saving himself and his, at any price; "for he
thought," says Froissart, "that it paid better to slay than to be slain."
Although he had more than once experienced the disloyalty of the King of
Navarre, he entered into fresh negotiation with him, hoping to use him as
an intermediary between himself and the dauphin, in order to obtain
either an acceptable peace or guarantees for his own security in case of
extreme danger.  The King of Navarre lent a ready ear to these overtures;
he had no scruple about negotiating with this or that individual, this or
that party, flattering himself that he would make one or the other useful
for his own purposes.  Marcel had no difficulty in discovering that the
real design of the King of Navarre was to set aside the house of Valois
and the Plantagenets together, and to become King of France himself, as a
descendant, in his own person, of St. Louis, though one degree more
remote.  An understanding was renewed between the two, such as it is
possible to have between two personal interests fundamentally different,
but capable of being for the moment mutually helpful.  Marcel, under
pretext of defence against the besiegers, admitted into Paris a pretty
large number of English in the pay of the King of Navarre.  Before long,
quarrels arose between the Parisians and these unpopular foreigners; on
the 21st of July, 1358, during one of these quarrels, twenty-four English
were massacred by the people; and four hundred others, it is said, were
in danger of undergoing the same fate, when Marcel came up and succeeded
in saving their lives by having them imprisoned in the Louvre.  The
quarrel grew hotter and spread farther.  The people of Paris went and
attacked other mercenaries of the King of Navarre, chiefly English, who
were occupying St. Denis and St. Cloud.  The Parisians were beaten; and
the King of Navarre withdrew to St. Denis.  On the 27th of July, Marcel
boldly resolved to set at liberty and send over to him the four hundred
English imprisoned in the Louvre.  He had them let out, accordingly, and
himself escorted them as far as the gate St. Honore, in the midst of a
throng that made no movement for all its irritation.  Some of Marcel's
satellites who formed the escort cried out as they went, "Has anybody
aught to say against the setting of these prisoners at liberty?"  The
Parisians remembered their late reverse, and not a voice was raised.
"Strongly moved as the people of Paris were in their hearts against the
provost of tradesmen," says a contemporary chronicle, there was not a man
who durst commence a riot."

Marcel's position became day by day more critical.  The dauphin, encamped
with his army around Paris, was keeping up secret but very active
communications with it; and a party, numerous and already growing in
popularity, was being formed there in his favor.  Men of note, who were
lately Marcel's comrades, were now pronouncing against him; and John
Maillart, one of the four chosen captains of the municipal forces, was
the most vigilant.  Marcel, at his wit's end, made an offer to the King
of Navarre to deliver Paris up to him on the night between the 31st of
July and the 1st of August.  All was ready for carrying out this design.
During the day of the 31st of July, Marcel would have changed the keepers
of the St. Denis gate, but Maillart opposed him, rushed to the Hotel de
Ville, seized the banner of France, jumped on horseback and rode through
the city shouting, "Mountjoy St. Denis, for the king and the duke!"  This
was the rallying-cry of the dauphin's partisans.  The day ended with a
great riot amongst the people.  Towards eleven o'clock at night Marcel,
followed by his people armed from head to foot, made his way to the St.
Anthony gate, holding in his hands, it is said, the keys of the city.
Whilst he was there, waiting for the arrival of the King of Navarre's
men, Maillart came up "with torches and lanterns and a numerous
assemblage.  He went straight to the provost and said to him, 'Stephen,
Stephen, what do you here at this hour?'  'John, what business have you
to meddle?  I am here to take the guard of the city of which I have the
government.'  'By God,' rejoined Maillart, 'that will not do; you are not
here at this hour for any good, and I'll prove it to you,' said he,
addressing his comrades.  'See, he holds in his hands the keys of the
gates, to betray the city.'

[Illustration: "In his Hands the Keys of the Gates."----354]

'You lie, John,' said Marcel.  'By God, you traitor, 'tis you who lie,'
replied Maillart: 'death! death! to all on his side!'  "And he raised his
battle-axe against Marcel.  Philippe Giffard, one of the provost's
friends, threw himself before Marcel and covered him for a moment with
his own body; but the struggle had begun in earnest.  Maillart plied his
battle-axe upon Marcel, who fell pierced with many wounds.  Six of his
comrades shared the same fate; and Robert Lecocq, Bishop of Laon, saved
himself by putting on a Cordelier's habit.  Maillart's company divided
themselves into several bands, and spread themselves all over the city,
carrying the news everywhere, and despatching or arresting the partisans
of Marcel.  The next morning, the 1st of August, 1358, "John Maillart
brought together in the market-place the greater part of the community of
Paris, explained for what reason he had slain the provost of tradesmen
and in what offence he had detected him, and pointed out quietly and
discreetly how that on this very night the city of Paris must have been
overrun and destroyed if God of His grace had not applied a remedy.  When
the people who were present heard these news they were much astounded at
the peril in which they had been, and the greater part thanked God with
folded hands for the grace He had done them."  The corpse of Stephen
Marcel was stripped and exposed quite naked to the public gaze, in front
of St. Catherine du Val des Beoliers, on the very spot where, by his
orders, the corpses of the two marshals, Robert de Clermont and John de
Conflans, had been exposed five months before.  He was afterwards cast
into the river in the presence of a great concourse.  "Then were
sentenced to death by the council of prud'hommes of Paris, and executed
by divers forms of deadly torture, several who had been of the sect of
the provost," the regent having declared that he would not re-enter Paris
until these traitors had ceased to live.

Thus perished, after scarcely three years' political life, and by the
hands of his former friends, a man of rare capacity and energy, who at
the outset had formed none but patriotic designs, and had, no doubt,
promised himself a better fate.  When, in December, 1355, at the summons
of a deplorably incapable and feeble king, Marcel, a simple burgher of
Paris and quite a new man, entered the assembly of the states-general of
France, itself quite a new power, he was justly struck with the vices and
abuses of the kingly government, with the evils and the dangers being
entailed thereby upon France, and with the necessity for applying some
remedy.  But, notwithstanding this perfectly honest and sound conviction,
he fell into a capital error; he tried to abolish, for a time at least,
the government he desired to reform, and to substitute for the kingship
and its agents the people and their elect.  For more than three centuries
the kingship had been the form of power which had naturally assumed shape
and development in France, whilst seconding the natural labor attending
the formation and development of the French nation; but this labor had as
yet advanced but a little way, and the nascent nation was not in a
condition to take up position at the head of its government.  Stephen
Marcel attempted by means of the states-general of the fourteenth century
to bring to pass what we in the nineteenth, and after all the advances of
the French nation, have not yet succeeded in getting accomplished, to
wit, the government of the country by the country itself.  Marcel, going
from excess to excess and from reverse to reverse in the pursuit of his
impracticable enterprise, found himself before long engaged in a fierce
struggle with the feudal aristocracy, still so powerful at that time, as
well as with the kingship.  Being reduced to depend entirely during this
struggle upon such strength as could be supplied by a municipal democracy
incoherent, inexperienced, and full of divisions in its own ranks, and by
a mad insurrection in the country districts, he rapidly fell into the
selfish and criminal condition of the man whose special concern is his
own personal safety.  This he sought to secure by an unworthy alliance
with the most scoundrelly amongst his ambitious contemporaries, and he
would have given up his own city as well as France to the King of Navarre
and the English had not another burgher of Paris, John Maillart, stopped
him, and put him to death at the very moment when the patriot of the
states-general of 1355 was about to become a traitor to his country.
Hardly thirteen years before, when Stephen Marcel was already a
full-grown man, the great Flemish burgher, James Van Artevelde, had,
in the cause of his country's liberties, attempted a similar enterprise,
and, after a series of great deeds at the outset and then of faults also
similar to those of Marcel, had fallen into the same abyss, and had
perished by the hand of his fellow-citizens, at the very moment when he
was laboring to put Flanders, his native country, into the hands of a
foreign master, the Prince of Wales, son of Edward III., King of England.
Of all political snares the democratic is the most tempting, but it is
also the most demoralizing and the most deceptive when, instead of
consulting the interests of the democracy by securing public liberties, a
man aspires to put it in direct possession of the supreme power, and with
its sole support to take upon himself the direction of the helm.

One single result of importance was won for France by the states-general
of the fourteenth century, namely, the principle of the nation's right to
intervene in their own affairs, and to set their government straight when
it had gone wrong or was incapable of performing that duty itself.  Up to
that time, in the thirteenth century and at the opening of the
fourteenth, the states-general had been hardly anything more than a
temporary expedient employed by the kingship itself to solve some special
question, or to escape from some grave embarrassment.  Starting from King
John, the states-general became one of the principles of national right;
a principle which did not disappear even when it remained without
application, and the prestige of which survived even its reverses.  Faith
and hope fill a prominent place in the lives of peoples as well as of
individuals; having sprung into real existence in 1355, the
states-general of France found themselves alive again in 1789; and we may
hope that, after so long a trial, their rebuffs and their mistakes will
not be more fatal to them in our day.




CHAPTER XXII.----THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR.--CHARLES V.

So soon as Marcel and three of his chief confidants had been put to death
at the St. Anthony gate, at the very moment when they were about to open
it to the English, John Maillart had information sent to the regent, at
that time at Charenton, with an urgent entreaty that he would come back
to Paris without delay.  "The news, at once spread abroad through the
city, was received with noisy joy there, and the red caps, which had been
worn so proudly the night before, were everywhere taken off and hidden.
The next morning a proclamation ordered that whosoever knew any of the
faction of Marcel should arrest them and take them to the Chatelet, but
without laying hands on their goods and without maltreating their wives
or children.  Several were taken, put to the question, brought out into
the public square, and beheaded by virtue of a decree.  They were the men
who but lately had the government of the city and decided all matters.
Some were burgesses of renown, eloquent and learned, and one of them, on
arriving at the square, cried out, 'Woe is me!  Would to Heaven, O King
of Navarre, that I had never seen thee or heard thee!'"  On the 2d of
August, 1358, in the evening, the dauphin, Charles, re-entered Paris, and
was accompanied by John Maillart, who "was mightily in his grace and
love."  On his way a man cried out, "By God, sir, if I had been listened
to, you would never have entered in here; but, after all, you will get
but little by it."  The Count of Tancarville, who was in the prince's
train, drew his sword, and "spurred his horse upon this rascal;" but the
dauphin restrained him, and contented himself with saying smilingly to
the man, "You will not be listened to, fair sir."  Charles had the spirit
of coolness and discretion; and "he thought," says his contemporary,
Christine de Pisan, "that if this fellow had been slain, the city which
had been so rebellious might probably have been excited thereby."
Charles, on being resettled in Paris, showed neither clemency nor
cruelty.  He let the reaction against Stephen Marcel run its course, and
turned it to account without further exciting it or prolonging it beyond
measure.  The property of some of the condemned was confiscated; some
attempts at a conspiracy for the purpose of avenging the provost of
trades-men were repressed with severity, and John Maillart and his family
were loaded with gifts and favors.  On becoming king, Charles determined
himself to hold his son at the baptismal font; but Robert Lecocq, Bishop
of Laon, the most intimate of Marcel's accomplices, returned quietly to
his diocese; two of Marcel's brothers, William and John, owing their
protection, it is said, to certain youthful reminiscences on the prince's
part, were exempted from all prosecution; Marcels widow even recovered a
portion of his property; and as early as the 10th of August, 1358,
Charles published an amnesty, from which he excepted only "those who had
been in the secret council of the provost of tradesmen in respect of the
great treason;" and on the same day another amnesty quashed all
proceedings for deeds done during the Jacquery, "whether by nobles or
ignobles."  Charles knew that in acts of rigor or of grace impartiality
conduces to the strength and the reputation of authority.

The death of Stephen Marcel and the ruin of his party were fatal to the
plots and ambitious hopes of the King of Navarre.  At the first moment he
hastened to renew his alliance with the King of England, and to
recommence war in Normandy, Picardy, and Champagne against the regent of
France.  But several of his local expeditions were unsuccessful; the
temperate and patient policy of the regent rallied round him the
populations aweary of war and anarchy; negotiations were opened between
the two princes; and their agents were laboriously discussing conditions
of peace when Charles of Navarre suddenly interfered in person, saying,
"I would fain talk over matters with the lord duke regent, my brother."
We know that his wife was Joan of France, the dauphin's sister.  "Hereat
there was great joy," says the chronicler, "amongst their councillors.
The two princes met, and the King of Navarre with modesty and gentleness
addressed the regent in these terms: 'My lord duke and brother, know that
I do hold you to be my proper and especial lord; though I have for a long
while made war against you and against France, our country, I wish not to
continue or to foment it; I wish henceforth to be a good Frenchman, your
faithful friend and close ally, your defender against the English and
whoever it may be: I pray you to pardon me thoroughly, me and mine, for
all that I have done to you up to this present.  I wish for neither the
lands nor the towns which are offered to me or promised to me; if I order
myself well, and you find me faithful in all matters, you shall give me
all that my deserts shall seem to you to justify.'  At these words the
regent arose and thanked the king with much sweetness; they, one and the
other, proffered and accepted wine and spices; and all present rejoiced
greatly, rendering thanks to God, who doth blow where He listeth, and
doth accomplish in a moment that which men with their own sole
intelligence have nor wit nor power to do in a long while.  The town of
Melun was restored to the lord duke; the navigation of the river once
more became free up stream and down; great was the satisfaction in Paris
and throughout the whole country; and peace being thus made, the two
princes returned both of them home."

The King of Navarre knew how to give an appearance of free will and
sincerity to changes of posture and behavior which seemed to be pressed
upon him by necessity; and we may suppose that the dauphin, all the while
that he was interchanging graceful acts, was too well acquainted by this
time with the other to become his dupe; but, by their apparent
reconciliation, they put an end, for a few brief moments, between
themselves to a position which was burdensome to both.

Whilst these events, from the battle of Poitiers to the death of Stephen
Marcel (from the 19th of September, 1356, to the 1st of August, 1358),
were going on in France, King John was living as a prisoner in the hands
of the English, first at Bordeaux, and afterwards in London, and was much
more concerned about the reception he met with, and the galas he was
present at, than about the affairs of his kingdom.  When, after his
defeat, he was conducted to Bordeaux by the Prince of Wales, who was
governor of English Aquitaine, he became the object of the most courteous
attentions, not only on the part of his princely conqueror, but of all
Gascon society, "dames and damsels, old and young, and their fair
attendants, who took pleasure in consoling him by providing him with
diversion."  Thus he passed the winter of 1356; and in the spring the
Prince of Wales received from his father, King Edward III., the
instructions and the vessels he had requested for the conveyance of his
prisoner to England.  In the month of May, 1357, "he summoned," says
Froissart, "all the highest barons of Gascony, and told them that he had
made up his mind to go to England, whither he would take some of them,
leaving the rest in the country of Bordelais and Gascony, to keep the
land and the frontiers against the French.  When the Gaseous heard that
the Prince of Wales would carry away out of their power the King of
France, whom they had helped to take, they were by no means of accord
therewith, and said to the prince, 'Dear sir, we owe you, in all that is
in our power, all honor, obedience, and loyal service; but it is not our
desire that you should thus remove from us the King of France, in respect
of whom we have had great trouble to put him in the place where he is;
for, thank God, he is in a good strong city, and we are strong and men
enough to keep him against the French, if they by force would take him
from you.'  The prince answered, 'Dear sirs, I grant it heartily; but my
lord my father wishes to hold and behold him; and with the good service
that you have done my father, and me also, we are well pleased, and it
shall be handsomely requited.'  Nevertheless, these words did not suffice
to appease the Gascons, until a means thereto was found by Sir Reginald
de Cobham and Sir John Chandos; for they knew the Gascons to be very
covetous.  So they said to the prince, 'Sir, offer them a sum of florins,
and you will see them come down to your demands.'  The prince offered
them sixty thousand florins; but they would have nothing to do with them.
At last there was so much haggling that an agreement was made for a
hundred thousand francs, which the prince was to hand over to the barons
of Gascony to share between them.  He borrowed the money; and the said
sum was paid and handed over to them before the prince started.  When
these matters were done, the prince put to sea with a fine fleet, crammed
with men-at-arms and archers, and put the King of France in a vessel
quite apart, that he might be more at his ease."

"They were at sea eleven days and eleven nights," continues Froissart,
and on the 12th they arrived at Sandwich harbor, where they landed, and
halted two days to refresh themselves and their horses.  On the third day
they set out and came to St. Thomas of Canterbury."

"When the news reached the King and Queen of England that the prince
their son had arrived and had brought with him the King of France, they
were greatly rejoiced thereat, and gave orders to the burgesses of London
to get themselves ready in as splendid fashion as was beseeming to
receive the King of France.  They of the city of London obeyed the king's
commandment, and arrayed themselves by companies most richly, all the
trades in cloth of different kinds."  According to the poet
herald-at-arms of John Chandos, King Edward III. went in person, with his
barons and more than twenty counts, to meet King John, who entered London
"mounted on a tall white steed right well harnessed and accoutred at all
points, and the Prince of Wales, on a little black hackney, at his side."
King John was first of all lodged in London at the Savoy hotel, and
shortly afterwards removed, with all his people, to Windsor; "there,"
says Froissart, "to hawk, hunt, disport himself, and take his pastime
according to his pleasure, and Sir Philip, his son, also; and all the
rest of the other lords, counts, and barons, remained in London, but they
went to see the king when it pleased them, and they were put upon their
honor only."  Chandos's poet adds, "Many a dame and many a damsel, right
amiable, gay, and lovely, came to dance there, to sing, and to cause
great galas and jousts, as in the days of King Arthur."

In the midst of his pleasures in England King John sometimes also
occupied himself at Windsor with his business in France, but with no more
wisdom or success than had been his wont during his actual reign.
Towards the end of April, 1359, the dauphin-regent received at Paris the
text of a treaty which the king his father had concluded, in London, with
the King of England.  "The cession of the western half of France, from
Calais to Bayonne, and the immediate payment of four million golden
crowns," such was, according to the terms of this treaty, the price of
King John's ransom, says M. Picot, in his work concerning the History of
the States-General, which was crowned in 1869 by the _Academie des
Sciences Morales et Politiques_, and the regent resolved to leave to the
judgment of France the acceptance or refusal of such exorbitant demands.
He summoned a meeting, to be held at Paris on the 19th of May, of
churchmen, nobles, and deputies from the good towns; but "there came but
few deputies, as well because full notice had not by that time been given
of the said summons, as because the roads were blocked by the English and
the Navarrese, who occupied fortresses in all parts whereby it was
possible to get to Paris."  The assembly had to be postponed from day to
day.  At last, on the 25th of May, the regent repaired to the palace.  He
halted on the marble staircase; around him were ranged the three estates;
and a numerous multitude filled the court-yard.  In presence of all the
people, William de Dormans, king's advocate in parliament, read the
treaty of peace, which was to divide the kingdom into two parts, so as to
hand over one to the foes of France.  The reading of it roused the
indignation of the people.  The estates replied that the treaty was not
"tolerable or feasible," and in their patriotic enthusiasm "decreed to
make fair war on the English."  But it was not enough to spare the
kingdom the shame of such a treaty; it was necessary to give the regent
the means of concluding a better.  On the 2d of June, the nobles
announced to the dauphin that they would serve for a month at their own
expense, and that they would pay besides such imposts as should be
decreed by the good towns.  The churchmen also offered to pay them.  The
city of Paris undertook to maintain "six hundred swords, three hundred
archers, and a thousand brigands."  The good towns offered twelve
thousand men; but they could not keep their promise, the country being
utterly ruined.

When King John heard at Windsor that the treaty, whereby he had hoped to
be set at liberty, had been rejected at Paris, he showed his displeasure
by a single outburst of personal animosity, saying, "Ah! Charles, fair
son, you were counselled by the King of Navarre, who deceives you, and
would deceive sixty such as you!"  Edward III., on his side, at once took
measures for recommencing the war; but before engaging in it he had King
John removed from Windsor to Hertford Castle, and thence to Somerton,
where he set a strong guard.  Having thus made certain that his prisoner
would not escape from him, he put to sea, and, on the 28th of October,
1359, landed at Calais with a numerous and well-supplied army.  Then,
rapidly traversing Northern France, he did not halt till he arrived
before Rheims, which he was in hopes of surprising, and where, it is
said, he purposed to have himself, without delay, crowned King of France.
But he found the place so well provided, and the population so determined
to make a good defence, that he raised the siege and moved on Chalons,
where the same disappointment awaited him.  Passing from Champagne to
Burgundy, he then commenced the same course of scouring and ravaging; but
the Burgundians entered into negotiations with him, and by a treaty
concluded on the 10th of March, 1360, and signed by Joan of Auvergne,
Queen of France, second wife of King John, and guardian of the young Duke
of Burgundy, Philip de Rouvre, they obtained, at the cost of two hundred
thousand golden sheep (moutons), an agreement that for three years Edward
and his army "would not go scouring and burning" in Burgundy, as they
were doing in the other parts of France.  Such was the powerlessness, or
rather absence, of all national government, that a province made a treaty
all alone, and on its own account, without causing the regent to show any
surprise, or to dream of making any complaint.

As a make-weight, at this same time, another province, Picardy, aided by
many Normans and Flemings, its neighbors, "nobles, burgesses, and
common-folk," was sending to sea an expedition which was going to try,
with God's help, to deliver King John from his prison in England, and
bring him back in triumph to his kingdom."  "Thus," says the chronicler,
"they who, God-forsaken or through their own faults, could not defend
themselves on the soil of their fathers, were going abroad to seek their
fortune and their renown, to return home covered with honor and boasting
of divine succor!  The Picard expedition landed in England on the 14th of
March, 1360; it did not deliver King John, but it took and gave over to
flames and pillage for two days the town of Winchelsea, after which it
put to sea again, and returned to its hearths."  (_The Continuer of
William of Nangis,_ t. ii.  p. 298.)

Edward III., weary of thus roaming with his army over France without
obtaining any decisive result, and without even managing to get into his
hands any one "of the good towns which he had promised himself," says
Froissart, "that he would tan and hide in such sort that they would be
glad to come to some accord with him," resolved to direct his efforts
against the capital of the kingdom, where the dauphin kept himself close.
On the 7th of April, 1360, he arrived hard by Montrouge, and his troops
spread themselves over the outskirts of Paris in the form of an investing
or besieging force.  But he had to do with a city protected by good
ramparts, and well supplied with provisions, and with a prince cool,
patient, determined, free from any illusion as to his danger or his
strength, and resolved not to risk any of those great battles of which he
had experienced the sad issue.  Foreseeing the advance of the English, he
had burned the villages in the neighborhood of Paris, where they might
have fixed their quarters; he did the same with the suburbs of St.
Germain, St. Marcel, and Notre-Dame-des-Champs; he turned a deaf ear to
all King Edward's warlike challenges; and some attempts at an assault on
the part of the English knights, and some sorties on the part of the
French knights, impatient of their inactivity, came to nothing.  At the
end of a week Edward, whose "army no longer found aught to eat," withdrew
from Paris by the Chartres road, declaring his purpose of entering the
good country of Beauce, where he would recruit himself all the summer,"
and whence he would return after vintage to resume the siege of Paris,
whilst his lieutenants would ravage all the neighboring provinces.  When
he was approaching Chartres, "there burst upon his army," says Froissart,
"a tempest, a storm, an eclipse, a wind, a hail, an upheaval so mighty,
so wondrous, so horrible, that it seemed as if the heaven were all
a-tumble, and the earth were opening to swallow up everything; the stones
fell so thick and so big that they slew men and horses, and there was
none so bold but that they were all dismayed.  There were at that time in
the army certain wise men, who said that it was a scourge of God, sent as
a warning, and that God was showing by signs that He would that peace
should be made."  Edward had by him certain discreet friends, who added
their admonitions to those of the tempest.  His cousin, the Duke of
Lancaster, said to him, "My lord, this war that you are waging in the
kingdom of France is right wondrous, and too costly for you; your men
gain by it, and you lose your time over it to no purpose; you will spend
your life on it, and it is very doubtful whether you will attain your
desire; take the offers made to you now, whilst you can come out with
honor; for, my lord, we may lose more in one day than we have won in
twenty years."  The Regent of France, on his side, indirectly made
overtures for peace; the Abbot of Cluny, and the General of the
Dominicans, legates of Pope Innocent VI., warmly seconded them; and
negotiations were opened at the hamlet of Bretigny, close to Chartres.
"The King of England was a hard nut to crack," says Froissart; he yielded
a little, however, and on the 8th of May, 1360, was concluded the treaty
of Bretigny, a peace disastrous indeed, but become necessary.  Aquitaine
ceased to be a French fief, and was exalted, in the King of England's
interest, to an independent sovereignty, together with the provinces
attached to Poitou, Saintonge, Aunis, Agenois, Perigord, Limousin,
Quercy, Bigorre, Angoumois, and Rouergue.  The King of England, on his
side, gave up completely to the King of France Normandy, Maine, and the
portion of Touraine and Anjou situated to the north of the Loire.  He
engaged, further, to solemnly renounce all pretensions to the crown of
France so soon as King John had renounced all rights of suzerainty over
Aquitaine.  King John's ransom was fixed at three millions of golden
crowns, payable in six years, and John Galeas Visconti, Duke of Milan,
paid the first instalment of it (six hundred thousand florins) as the
price of his marriage with Isabel of France, daughter of King John.  Hard
as these conditions were, the peace was joyfully welcomed in Paris, and
throughout Northern France; the bells of the country churches, as well as
of Notre-Dame in Paris, songs and dances amongst the people, and liberty
of locomotion and of residence secured to the English in all places, "so
that none should disquiet them or insult them," bore witness to the
general satisfaction.  But some of the provinces ceded to the King of
England had great difficulty in resigning themselves to it.  "In Poitou,
and in all the district of Saintonge," says Froissart, "great was the
displeasure of barons, knights, and good towns when they had to be
English.  The town of La Rochelle was especially unwilling to agree
thereto; it is wonderful what sweet and piteous words they wrote, again
and again, to the King of France, begging him, for God's sake, to be
pleased not to separate them from his own domains, or place them in
foreign hands, and saying that they would rather be clipped every year of
half their revenue than pass into the hands of the English.  And when
they saw that neither excuses, nor remonstrances, nor prayers were of any
avail, they obeyed , but the men of most mark in the town said, 'We will
recognize the English with the lips, but the heart shall beat to it
never.'"  Thus began to grow in substance and spirit, in the midst of war
and out of disaster itself [_per damna, per caedes ab ipso Duxit opes
animumque ferro_], that national patriotism which had hitherto been such
a stranger to feudal France, and which was so necessary for her progress
towards unity--the sole condition for her of strength, security, and
grandeur, in the state characteristic of the European world since the
settlement of the Franks in Gaul.

Having concluded the treaty of Bretigny, the King of England returned on
the 18th of May, 1360, to London; and, on the 8th of July following, King
John, having been set at liberty, was brought over by the Prince of Wales
to Calais, where Edward III. came to meet him.  The two kings treated one
another there with great courtesy.  "The King of England," says
Froissart, "gave the King of France at Calais Castle a magnificent
supper, at which his own children, and the Duke of Lancaster, and the
greatest barons of England, waited at table, bareheaded."  Meanwhile the
Prince-Regent of France was arriving at Amiens, and there receiving from
his brother-in-law, Galdas Visconti, Duke of Milan, the sum necessary to
pay the first instalment of his royal father's ransom.  Payment having
been made, the two kings solemnly ratified at Calais the treaty of
Britigny.  Two sons of King John, the Duke of Anjou and the Duke of
Berry, with several other personages of consideration, princes of the
blood, barons, and burgesses of the principal good towns, were given as
hostages to the King of England for the due execution of the treaty; and
Edward III. negotiated between the King of France and Charles the Bad,
King of Navarre, a reconciliation precarious as ever.  The work of
pacification having been thus accomplished, King John departed on foot
for Boulogne, where he was awaited by the dauphin, his son, and where the
Prince of Wales and his two brothers, like-wise on foot, came and joined
him.  All these princes passed two days together at Boulogne in religious
ceremonies and joyous galas; after which the Prince of Wales returned to
Calais, and King John set out for Paris, which he once more entered,
December 13, 1360.  "He was welcomed there," says Froissart, "by all
manner of folk, for he had been much desired there.  Rich presents were
made him; the prelates and barons of his kingdom came to visit him; they
feasted him and rejoiced with him, as it was seemly to do; and the king
received them sweetly and handsomely, for well he knew how."

And that was all King John did know.  When he was once more seated on his
throne, the counsels of his eldest son, the late regent, induced him to
take some wise and wholesome administrative measures.  All adulteration
of the coinage was stopped; the Jews were recalled for twenty years, and
some securities were accorded to their industry and interests; and an
edict renewed the prohibition of private wars.  But in his personal
actions, in his bearing and practices as a king, the levity, frivolity,
thoughtlessness, and inconsistency of King John were the same as ever.
He went about his kingdom, especially in Southern France, seeking
everywhere occasions for holiday-making and disbursing, rather than for
observing and reforming the state of the country.  During the visit he
paid in 1362 to the new pope, Urban V., at Avignon, he tried to get
married to Queen Joan of Naples, the widow of two husbands already, and,
not being successful, he was on the point of involving himself in a new
crusade against the Turks.  It was on his return from this trip that he
committed the gravest fault of his reign, a fault which was destined to
bring upon France and the French kingship even more evils and disasters
than those which had made the treaty of Bretigny a necessity.  In 1362,
the young Duke of Burgundy, Philip de Louvre, the last of the first house
of the Dukes of Burgundy, descendants of King Robert, died without issue,
leaving several pretenders to his rich inheritance.  King John was,
according to the language of the genealogists, the nearest of blood, and
at the same time the most powerful; and he immediately took possession of
the duchy, went, on the 23d of December, 1362, to Dijon, swore on the
altar of St. Benignus that he would maintain the privileges of the city
and of the province, and, nine months after, on the 6th of September,
1363, disposed of the duchy of Burgundy in the following terms:
"Recalling again to memory the excellent and praise-worthy services of
our right dearly beloved Philip, the fourth of our sons, who freely
exposed himself to death with us, and, all wounded as he was, remained
unwavering and fearless at the battle of Poitiers .  .  .  we do concede
to him and give him the duchy and peerage of Burgundy, together with all
that we may have therein of right, possession, and proprietorship .  .  .
for the which gift our said son hath done us homage as duke and premier
peer of France."  Thus was founded that second house of the Dukes of
Burgundy which was destined to play, for more than a century, so great
and often so fatal a part in the fortunes of France.

Whilst he was thus preparing a gloomy future for his country and his
line, King John heard that his second son, the Duke of Anjou, one of the
hostages left in the hands of the King of England as security for the
execution of the treaty of Bretigny, had broken his word of honor and
escaped from England, in order to go and join his wife at Guise Castle.
Knightly faith was the virtue of King John; and it was, they say, on this
occasion, that he cried, as he was severely upbraiding his son, that "if
good faith were banished from the world, it ought to find an asylum in
the hearts of kings."  He announced to his councillors, assembled at
Amiens, his intention of going in person to England.  An effort was made
to dissuade him; and "several prelates and barons of France told him that
he was committing great folly when he was minded to again put himself in
danger from the King of England.  He answered that he had found in his
brother, the King of England, in the Queen, and in his nephews, their
children, so much loyalty, honor, and courtesy, that he had no doubt but
that they would be courteous, loyal, and amiable to him, in any case.
And so he was minded to go and make the excuses of his son, the Duke of
Anjou, who had returned to France."  According to the most intelligent of
the chroniclers of the time, the Continuer of William of Nangis, "some
persons said that the king was minded to go to England in order to amuse
himself;" and they were probably right, for kingly and knightly
amusements were the favorite subject of King John's meditations.  This
time he found in England something else besides galas; he before long
fell seriously ill, "which mightily disconcerted the King and Queen of
England, for the wisest in the country judged him to be in great peril."
He died, in fact, on the 8th of April, 1364, at the Savoy Hotel, in
London; "whereat the King of England, the Queen, their children, and many
English barons were much moved," says Froissart, "for the honor of the
great love which the King of France, since peace was made, had shown
them."  France was at last about to have in Charles V. a practical and
an effective king.

[Illustration: Charles V.----371]

In spite of the discretion he had displayed during his four years of
regency (from 1356 to 1360), his reign opened under the saddest auspices.
In 1363, one of those contagious diseases, all at that time called the