Nothing could have corresponded better with the wishes of Charles V. For eight years past he had taken to heart the treaty of Bretigny, and he was as determined not to miss as he was patient in waiting for an opportunity for a breach of it.  But he was too prudent to act with a precipitation which would have given his conduct an appearance of a premeditated and deep-laid purpose for which there was no legitimate ground.  He did not care to entertain at once and unreservedly the appeal of the Aquitanian lords.  He gave them a gracious reception, and made them “great cheer and rich gifts;” but he announced his intention of thoroughly examining the stipulations of the treaty of Bretigny, and the rights of his kingship.  “He sent for into his council chamber all the charters of the peace, and then he had them read on several days and at full leisure.”  He called into consultation the schools of Boulogne, of Montpellier, of Toulouse, and of Orleans, and the most learned clerks of the papal court.  It was not until he had thus ascertained the legal means of maintaining that the stipulations of the treaty of Bretigny had not all of them been performed by the King of England, and that, consequently, the King of France had not lost all his rights of suzerainty over the ceded provinces, that on the 25th of January, 1369, just six months after the appeal of the Aquitanian lords had been submitted to him, he adopted it, in the following terms, which he addressed to the Prince of Wales, at Bordeaux, and which are here curtailed in their legal expressions:  —­

“Charles, by the grace of God King of France, to our nephew the Prince of Wales and of Aquitaine, greeting.  Whereas many prelates, barons, knights, universities, communes, and colleges of the country of Gascony and the duchy of Aquitaine, have come thence into our presence, that they might have justice touching certain undue grievances and vexations which you, through weak counsel and silly advice, have designed to impose upon them, whereat we are quite astounded, . . . we, of our kingly majesty and lordship, do command you to come to our city of Paris, in your own person, and to present yourself before us in our chamber of peers, for to hear justice touching the said complaints and grievances proposed by you to be done to your people which claims to have resort to our court. . .  And be it as quickly as you may.”

“When the Prince of Wales had read this letter,” says Froissart, “he shook his head, and looked askant at the aforesaid Frenchmen; and when he had thought a while, he answered, ’We will go willingly, at our own time, since the King of France doth bid us, but it shall be with our Basque on our head, and with sixty thousand men at our back.’”