le to meet the English in the field, fell back in despair on
negotiation. Innocent VI. again offered his good services. John sent
from his English prison full powers to his son to make what terms he
would, and on April 3, which was Good Friday, ambassadors from each
power met under papal intervention at Longjumeau; but Edward still
insisted on the terms of the treaty of London, for which the French were
not yet prepared. On April 7 Edward began the siege of Paris by an
attack on the southern suburbs, but was so little successful that he
withdrew five days later. A terrible tempest destroyed his provision
train and devastated his army. These disasters made Edward anxious for
peace, and the negotiations, after two interruptions, were successfully
renewed at Chartres, and facilitated by the signature of a truce for a
year. The work of a definitive treaty was pushed forward, and on May 8,
preliminaries of peace were signed between the prince of Wales and
Charles of France at the neighbouring hamlet of Bretigni, whither the
peacemakers had transferred their sittings. There were still formalities
to accomplish which took up many months. King John was escorted in July
by the Prince of Wales to Calais, and in October he was joined by Edward
III., who had returned to England about the time that the negotiations
at Bretigni were over. The peace took its final form at Calais in
October 24, 1360. Next day John was released, and ratified the
convention as a free man on French soil. This permanent treaty is more
properly styled the treaty of Calais than the treaty of Bretigni; but
the alterations between the two were only significant in one particular
respect. At Calais the English agreed to omit a clause inserted at
Bretigni by which Edward renounced his claims to the French throne, and
John his claims over the allegiance of the inhabitants of the ceded
districts. As the Calais treaty of October alone had the force of law,
it was a real triumph of French diplomacy to have suppressed so vital a
feature in the definitive document.[1] Even with this alleviation the
terms were sufficiently humiliating to France. Edward and his heirs were
to receive in perpetuity, "and in the manner in which the kings of
France had held them," an ample territory both in southern and northern
France. All Aquitaine was henceforth to be English, including Poitou,
Saintonge, Perigord, Angoumois, Limousin, Quercy, Rouergue, Agenais, and
Bigorre. The greatest fe