. Edward in 1335 landed at Calais, but was recalled to pacify
Scotland; Charles of Navarre and the Duke of Lancaster were on the Breton
border; the Black Prince sailed for Bordeaux. In 1356 he rode northward
with a small army to the Loire, and King John, hastily summoning all his
nobles and fief-holders, set out to meet him. Hereon the Black Prince,
whose forces were weak, began to retreat; but the French King outmarched
and intercepted him near Poitiers. He had the English completely in his
power, and with a little patience could have starved them into
submission; instead, he deemed it his chivalric duty to avenge Crecy in
arms, and the great battle of Poitiers was the result (19th September,
1356). The carnage and utter ruin of the French feudal army was quite
incredible; the dead seemed more than the whole army of the Black Prince;
the prisoners were too many to be held. The French army, bereft of
leaders, melted away, and the Black Prince rode triumphantly back to
Bordeaux with the captive King John and his brave little son in his
train. A two years' truce ensued; King John was carried over to London,
where he found a fellow in misfortune in David of Scotland, who had been
for eleven years a captive in English hands. The utter degradation of
the nobles, and the misery of the country, gave to the cities of France
an opportunity which one great man, Etienne Marcel, provost of the
traders at Paris, was not slow to grasp. He fortified the capital and
armed the citizens; the civic clergy made common cause with him; and when
the Dauphin Charles convoked the three Estates at Paris, it was soon seen
that the nobles had become completely discredited and powerless. It was
a moment in which a new life might have begun for France; in vain did the
noble order clamour for war and taxes,--they to do the war, with what
skill and success all men now knew, and the others to pay the taxes.
Clergy, however, and burghers resisted. The Estates parted, leaving what
power there was still in France in the hands of Etienne Marcel. He
strove in vain to reconcile Charles the Dauphin with Charles of Navarre,
who stood forward as a champion of the towns. Very reluctantly did
Marcel entrust his fortunes to such hands. With help of Lecocq, Bishop
of Laon, he called the Estates again together, and endeavoured to lay
down sound principles of government, which Charles the Dauphin was
compelled to accept. Paris, however, stood alone, and e