lf 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 Fran