is kingdom came to visit him; they
feasted him and rejoiced with him, as it was seemly to do; and the king
received them sweetly and handsomely, for well he knew how."

And that was all King John did know. When he was once more seated on his
throne, the counsels of his eldest son, the late regent, induced him to
take some wise and wholesome administrative measures. All adulteration
of the coinage was stopped; the Jews were recalled for twenty years, and
some securities were accorded to their industry and interests; and an
edict renewed the prohibition of private wars. But in his personal
actions, in his bearing and practices as a king, the levity, frivolity,
thoughtlessness, and inconsistency of King John were the same as ever.
He went about his kingdom, especially in Southern France, seeking
everywhere occasions for holiday-making and disbursing, rather than for
observing and reforming the state of the country. During the visit he
paid in 1362 to the new pope, Urban V., at Avignon, he tried to get
married to Queen Joan of Naples, the widow of two husbands already, and,
not being successful, he was on the point of involving himself in a new
crusade against the Turks. It was on his return from this trip that he
committed the gravest fault of his reign, a fault which was destined to
bring upon France and the French kingship even more evils and disasters
than those which had made the treaty of Bretigny a necessity. In 1362,
the young Duke of Burgundy, Philip de Louvre, the last of the first house
of the Dukes of Burgundy, descendants of King Robert, died without issue,
leaving several pretenders to his rich inheritance. King John was,
according to the language of the genealogists, the nearest of blood, and
at the same time the most powerful; and he immediately took possession of
the duchy, went, on the 23d of December, 1362, to Dijon, swore on the
altar of St. Benignus that he would maintain the privileges of the city
and of the province, and, nine months after, on the 6th of September,
1363, disposed of the duchy of Burgundy in the following terms:
"Recalling again to memory the excellent and praise-worthy services of
our right dearly beloved Philip, the fourth of our sons, who freely
exposed himself to death with us, and, all wounded as he was, remained
unwavering and fearless at the battle of Poitiers . . . we do concede
to him and give him the duchy and peerage of Burgundy, together with all
that we may have t