The states-general at their re-assembly on the 1st of March, 1356, admitted the feebleness of their authority and the insufficiency of their preceding votes for the purpose of aiding the king in the war.  They abolished the salt-tax and the sales-duty, which had met with such opposition; but, stanch in their patriotism and loyalty, they substituted therefor an income-tax, imposed on every sort of folk, nobles or burghers, ecclesiastical or lay, which was to be levied “not by the high justiciers of the king, but by the folks of the three estates themselves.”  The king’s ordinance, dated the 12th of March, 1356, which regulates the execution of these different measures, is (article 10) to this import:  “there shall be, in each city, three deputies, one for each estate.  These deputies shall appoint, in each parish, collectors, who shall go into the houses to receive the declaration which the persons who dwell there shall make touching their property, their estate, and their servants.  When a declaration shall appear in conformity with truth, they shall be content therewith; else they shall have him who has made it sent before the deputies of the city in the district whereof he dwells, and the deputies shall cause him to take, on this subject, such oaths as they shall think proper. . . .  The collectors in the villages shall cause to be taken therein, in the presence of the pastor, suitable oaths on the subject of the declarations.  If, in the towns or villages, any one refuse to take the oaths demanded, the collectors shall assess his property according to general opinion, and on the deposition of his neighbors.” (Ordonnances des Bois de France, t. iv. pp. 171 175.)

In return for so loyal and persevering a co-operation on the part of the states-general, notwithstanding the obstacles en-countered by their votes and their agents, King John confirmed expressly, by an ordinance of May 26, 1356 [art. 9:  Ordonnances des Bois de France, t. iii. p. 55], all the promises he had made them and all the engagements he had entered into with them by his ordinance of December 28, 1355, given immediately after their first session (Ibidem, t. iii. pp. 19 37):  a veritable reformatory ordinance, which enumerated the various royal abuses, administrative, judicial, financial, and military, against which there had been a public clamor, and regulated the manner of redressing them.

After these mutual concessions and promises the states-general broke up, adjourning until the 30th of November following (1356); but two months and a half before this time King John, proud of some success obtained by him in Normandy and of the brilliant army of knights remaining to him after he had dismissed the burgher-forces, rushed, as has been said, with conceited impetuosity to encounter the Prince of Wales, rejected with insolent demands the modest proposals of withdrawal made to him by the commander of the little English army, and, on the 19th of September, lost, contrary to all expectation,