patient, determined, free from any illusion as to his danger or his strength, and resolved not to risk any of those great battles of which he had experienced the sad issue.  Foreseeing the advance of the English, he had burned the villages in the neighborhood of Paris, where they might have fixed their quarters; he did the same with the suburbs of St. Germain, St. Marcel, and Notre-Dame-des-Champs; he turned a deaf ear to all King Edward’s warlike challenges; and some attempts at an assault on the part of the English knights, and some sorties on the part of the French knights, impatient of their inactivity, came to nothing.  At the end of a week Edward, whose “army no longer found aught to eat,” withdrew from Paris by the Chartres road, declaring his purpose of entering the good country of Beauce, where he would recruit himself all the summer,” and whence he would return after vintage to resume the siege of Paris, whilst his lieutenants would ravage all the neighboring provinces.  When he was approaching Chartres, “there burst upon his army,” says Froissart, “a tempest, a storm, an eclipse, a wind, a hail, an upheaval so mighty, so wondrous, so horrible, that it seemed as if the heaven were all a-tumble, and the earth were opening to swallow up everything; the stones fell so thick and so big that they slew men and horses, and there was none so bold but that they were all dismayed.  There were at that time in the army certain wise men, who said that it was a scourge of God, sent as a warning, and that God was showing by signs that He would that peace should be made.”  Edward had by him certain discreet friends, who added their admonitions to those of the tempest.  His cousin, the Duke of Lancaster, said to him, “My lord, this war that you are waging in the kingdom of France is right wondrous, and too costly for you; your men gain by it, and you lose your time over it to no purpose; you will spend your life on it, and it is very doubtful whether you will attain your desire; take the offers made to you now, whilst you can come out with honor; for, my lord, we may lose more in one day than we have won in twenty years.”  The Regent of France, on his side, indirectly made overtures for peace; the Abbot of Cluny, and the General of the Dominicans, legates of Pope Innocent VI., warmly seconded them; and negotiations were opened at the hamlet of Bretigny, close to Chartres.  “The King of England was a hard nut to crack,” says Froissart; he yielded a little, however, and on the 8th of May, 1360, was concluded the treaty of Bretigny, a peace disastrous indeed, but become necessary.  Aquitaine ceased to be a French fief, and was exalted, in the King of England’s interest, to an independent sovereignty, together with the provinces attached to Poitou, Saintonge, Aunis, Agenois, Perigord, Limousin, Quercy, Bigorre, Angoumois, and Rouergue.  The King of England, on his side, gave up completely to the King of France Normandy, Maine, and the portion of Touraine and Anjou situated to the north of the