The Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, vol 3 | Page 7

accept. Paris, however, stood alone, and even there all
were not agreed. Marcel and Bishop Lecocq, seeing the critical state of
things, obtained the release of Charles of Navarre, then a prisoner. The
result was that ere long the Dauphin-regent was at open war with
Navarre and with Paris. The outbreak of the miserable peasantry, the
Jacquerie, who fought partly for revenge against the nobles, partly to
help Paris, darkened the time; they were repressed with savage
bloodshed, and in 1358 the Dauphin's party in Paris assassinated the
only great man France had seen for long. With Etienne Marcel's death
all hope of a constitutional life died out from France; the Dauphin
entered Paris and set his foot on the conquered liberties of his country.
Paris had stood almost alone; civic strength is wanting in France; the
towns but feebly supported Marcel; they compelled the movement to
lose its popular and general character, and to become a first attempt to
govern France from Paris alone. After some insincere negotiations, and
a fear of desultory warfare, in which Edward III. traversed France
without meeting with a single foe to fight, peace was at last agreed to,
at Bretigny, in May, 1360. By this act Edward III. renounced the
French throne and gave up all he claimed or held north of the Loire,
while he was secured in the lordship of the south and west, as well as
that part of Northern Picardy which included Calais, Guines, and
Ponthieu. The treaty also fixed the ransom to be paid by King John.
France was left smaller than she had been under Philip Augustus, yet
she received this treaty with infinite thankfulness; worn out with war

and weakness, any diminution of territory seemed better to her than a
continuance of her unbearable misfortunes. Under Charles, first as
Regent, then as King, she enjoyed an uneasy rest and peace for twenty
years.
King John, after returning for a brief space to France, went back into
his pleasant captivity in England, leaving his country to be ruled by the
Regent the Dauphin. In 1364 he died, and Charles V., "the Wise,"
became King in name, as he had now been for some years in fact. This
cold, prudent, sickly prince, a scholar who laid the foundations of the
great library in Paris by placing 900 MSS. in three chambers in the
Louvre, had nothing to dazzle the ordinary eye; to the timid spirits of
that age he seemed to be a malevolent wizard, and his name of "Wise"
had in it more of fear than of love. He also is notable for two things: he
reformed the current coin, and recognised the real worth of Du
Guesclin, the first great leader of mercenaries in France, a grim
fighting-man, hostile to the show of feudal warfare, and herald of a new
age of contests, in which the feudal levies would fall into the
background. The invention of gunpowder in this century, the incapacity
of the great lords, the rise of free lances and mercenary troops, all told
that a new era had arrived. It was by the hand of Du Guesclin that
Charles overcame his cousin and namesake, Charles of Navarre, and
compelled him to peace. On the other hand, in the Breton war which
followed just after, he was defeated by Sir John Chandos and the
partisans of Jean de Montfort, who made him prisoner; the Treaty of
Guerande, which followed, gave them the dukedom of Brittany; and
Charles V., unable to resist, was fair to receive the new duke's homage,
and to confirm him in the duchy. The King did not rest till he had
ransomed Du Guesclin from the hands of Chandos; he then gave him
commission to raise a paid army of freebooters, the scourge of France,
and to march with them to support, against the Black Prince, the claims
of Henry of Trastamare to the Crown of Castile. Successful at first by
help of the King of Aragon, he was made Constable of Spain at the
coronation of Henry at Burgos. Edward the Black Prince, however,
intervened, and at the battle of Najara (1367) Du Guesclin was again a
prisoner in English hands, and Henry lost his throne. Fever destroyed
the victorious host, and the Black Prince, withdrawing into Gascony,
carried with him the seeds of the disorder which shortened his days. Du

Guesclin soon got his liberty again; and Charles V., seeing how much
his great rival of England was weakened, determined at last on open
war. He allied himself with Henry of Trastamare, listened to the
grievances of the Aquitanians, summoned the Black Prince to appear
and answer the complaints. In 1369, Henry defeated Pedro, took him
prisoner, and murdered him in a brawl; thus perished the hopes of the
English party