he
title of Dauphin.]

[Footnote 84: So called from the familiar appellation "Jacques
Bonhomme," applied half in contempt, half in jest, by the seigneurs to
the peasants who served them in the wars.]

Next year the English peril again threatened Paris. The invasion of
1359 resembled a huge picnic or hunting expedition. The king of
England and his barons brought their hunters, falcons, dogs and
fishing tackle. They marched leisurely to Bourg la Reine, less than
two leagues from Paris, pillaged the surrounding country and turned to
Chartres, where tempest and sickness forced Edward III. to come to
terms. After the treaty of Bretigny, in 1360, the Parisians saw their
good King John again, who was ransomed for a sum equal to about ten
million pounds of present-day value. The memory of this and other
enormous ransoms exacted by the English, endured for centuries, and
when a Frenchman had paid his creditors he would say,--_j'ai paye mes
Anglais_.[85] ("I have paid my English.") A magnificent reception was
accorded to the four English barons who came to sign the Peace at
Paris. They were taken to the Sainte Chapelle and shown the fairest
relics and richest jewels in the world, and each was given a spine
from the crown of thorns, which he deemed the noblest jewel that could
be presented to him.

[Footnote 85: Howell mentions the locution in a letter dated 1654.]

The Dauphin, who on the death of good King John in London (1364)
became Charles V., by careful statesmanship succeeded in restoring
order to the kingdom and to its finances[86] and in winning some
successes against the English.

[Footnote 86: Charles taxed and borrowed heavily. Even the members of
his household were importuned for loans, however small. His cook lent
him frs. 67.50.]

In 1370 their camp fires were again seen outside Paris: but Marcel's
wall had now been completed. Charles refused battle and allowed them
to ravage the suburbs with impunity. Before the army left, an English
knight swore he would joust at the gates of the city, and spurred
lance in hand against them. As he turned to ride back, a big butcher
lifted his pole-axe, smote the knight on the neck and felled him; four
others battered him to death, "their blows," says Froissart, "falling
on his armour like strokes on an anvil."

By wise council rather than by war Charles won back much of his
dismembered country. He was a great builder and patron of the arts.
The Louvre, being now enclosed