that the deputies would not work whilst anybody belonging to the king’s council was with them.”  So the officers withdrew; and a few days afterwards, towards the end of October, 1356, the commissioners reported the result of their conferences to each of the three orders.  The general assembly adopted their proposals, and had the dauphin informed that they were desirous of a private audience.  Charles repaired, with some of his councillors, to the monastery of the Cordeliers, where the estates were holding their sittings, and there he received their representations.  They demanded of him “that he should deprive of their offices such of the king’s councillors as they should point out, have them arrested, and confiscate all their property.  Twenty-two men of note, the chancellor, the premier president of the Parliament, the king’s stewards, and several officers in the household of the dauphin himself, were thus pointed out.  They were accused of having taken part to their own profit in all the abuses for which the government was reproached, and of having concealed from the king the true state of things and the misery of the people.  The commissioners elected by the estates were to take proceedings against them:  if they were found guilty, they were to be punished; and if they were innocent, they were at the very least to forfeit their offices and their property, on account of their bad counsels and their bad administration.”

The chronicles of the time are not agreed as to these last demands.  We have, as regards the events of this period, two contemporary witnesses, both full of detail, intelligence, and animation in their narratives, namely, Froissart and the continuer of William of Nangis’ Latin Chronicle.  Froissart is in general favorable to kings and princes; the anonymous chronicler, on the contrary, has a somewhat passionate bias towards the popular party.  Probably both of them are often given to exaggeration in their assertions and impressions; but, taking into account none but undisputed facts, it is evident that the claims of the states-general, though they were, for the most part, legitimate enough at bottom, by reason of the number, gravity, and frequent recurrence of abuses, were excessive and violent, and produced the effect of complete suspension in the regular course of government and justice.  The dauphin, Charles, was a young man, of a naturally sound and collected mind, but without experience, who had hitherto lived only in his father’s court, and who could not help being deeply shocked and disquieted by such demands.  He was still more troubled when the estates demanded that the deputies, under the title of reformers, should traverse the provinces as a check upon the malversations of the royal officials, and that twenty-eight delegates, chosen from amongst the three orders, four prelates, twelve knights, and twelve burgesses, should be constantly placed near the king’s person, “with power to do and order everything in the kingdom, just like the king himself, as well for the purpose of appointing and removing public officers as for other matters.”  It was taking away the entire government from the crown, and putting it into the hands of the estates.