fectly formed, by convoking at Paris, for
the 30th of November, 1355, the states-general of _Langue d'oil_. that
is, Northern France, separated by the Dordogne and the Garonne from
_Langue d'oc,_ which had its own assembly distinct. Auvergne belonged to
_Langue d'oil_.

It is certain that neither this assembly nor the king who convoked it had
any clear and fixed idea of what they were meeting together to do. The
kingship was no longer competent for its own government and its own
perils; but it insisted none the less, in principle, on its own all but
unregulated and unlimited power. The assembly did not claim for the
country the right of self-government, but it had a strong leaven of
patriotic sentiment, and at the same time was very much discontented with
the king's government: it had equally at heart the defence of France
against England and against the abuses of the kingly power. There was no
notion of a social struggle and no systematic idea of political
revolution; a dangerous crisis and intolerable sufferings constrained
king and nation to come together in order to make an attempt at an
understanding and at a mutual exchange of the supports and the reliefs of
which they were in need.

On the 2d of December, 1355, the three orders, the clergy, the nobility,
and the deputies from the towns assembled at Paris in the great hall of
the Parliament. Peter de la Forest, Archbishop of Rouen and Chancellor
of France, asked them in the king's name "to consult together about
making him a subvention which should suffice for the expenses of the
war," and the king offered to "make a sound and durable coinage." The
tampering with the coinage was the most pressing of the grievances for
which the three orders solicited a remedy. They declared that "they were
ready to live and die with the king, and to put their bodies and what
they had at his service;" and they demanded authority to deliberate
together--which was granted them. John de Craon, Archbishop of Rheims;
Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens; and Stephen Marcel, provost of the
tradesmen of Paris, were to report the result, as presidents, each of his
own order. The session of the states lasted not more than a week. They
replied to the king "that they would give him a subvention of thirty
thousand men-at-arms every year," and, for their pay, they voted an
impost of fifty hundred thousand livres (five millions of livres), which
was to be levied "on all folks, of whatev