Paris and the Jacquerie, as this peasant rising was called, were at last crushed by treachery and the sword: and, exhausted as it was, France still backed the Regent in rejecting a treaty of peace by which John in 1359 proposed to buy his release.

By this treaty Maine, Touraine, and Poitou in the south, Normandy, Guisnes, Ponthieu, and Calais in the west were ceded to the English king.

On its rejection Edward in 1360 poured ravaging over the wasted land.

Famine however proved its best defence.

"I could not believe," said Petrarch of this time, "that this was the same France which I had seen so rich and flourishing.