Then, growing bolder, it demanded reforms: Private wars must cease; the meetings of the States-General must be at appointed intervals, without being summoned by the king.
These meetings at Paris grew stormy.

Gradually re-enforced with a vicious element, they were soon led by demagogues, became violent and revolutionary, and finally red caps and barricades, characteristic of Parisian mobs of a later period, brought the whole movement into the hands of the agents of "Charles the Bad," evil genius of his time, who saw his opportunity to use it in his own ambitious designs upon the throne.

But France was to hear from the _Tiers Etat_ again! In 1356, Edward's son, the Black Prince, won a still greater victory than Crecy, at _Poitiers_, in which king John was captured and carried to London.
But Edward found that, while victories were comparatively easy, conquest was difficult.

A generation had passed since the war began.
So in 1360 both kingdoms were ready to consider terms of peace.

By the treaty of Bretigny, Edward renounced the claim to the French throne, and received in full sovereignty the great inheritance Queen Eleanor had brought to Henry II.