and caves from ill-usage or insult, till they broke out in a rebellion
called the Jacquerie, and whenever they could seize a castle revenged
themselves, like the brutes they had been made, on those within it.
Taxation was so levied by the king's officers as to be frightfully
oppressive, and corruption reigned everywhere. As the king was in
prison, and his heir, Charles, had fled ignominiously from Poitiers,
the citizens of Paris hoped to effect a reform, and rose with their
provost-marshal, Stephen Marcel, at their head, threatened Charles, and
slew two of his officers before his eyes. On their demand the
States-General were convoked, and made wholesome regulations as to the
manner of collecting the taxes, but no one, except perhaps Marcel, had
any real zeal or public spirit. Charles the Bad, of Navarre, who had
pretended to espouse their cause, betrayed it; the king declared the
decisions of the States-General null and void; and the crafty management
of his son prevented any union between the malcontents. The gentry
rallied, and put down the Jacquerie with horrible cruelty and revenge.
The burghers of Paris found that Charles the Bad only wanted to gain the
throne, and Marcel would have proclaimed him; but those who thought him
even worse than his cousins of Valois admitted the other Charles, by
whom Marcel and his partisans were put to death. The attempt at reform
thus ended in talk and murder, and all fell back into the same state of
misery and oppression.


4. The Peace of Bretigny.--This Charles, eldest son of John, obtained
by purchase the imperial fief of Vienne, of which the counts had always
been called Dauphins, a title thenceforth borne by the heir apparent of
the kingdom. His father's captivity and the submission of Paris left
him master of the realm; but he did little to defend it when Edward III.
again attacked it, and in 1360 he was forced to bow to the terms which