Edward returned in triumph to Bordeaux, and afterwards crossed to England, to present his all-important prisoner to the king his father. The prince treated John with great gentleness and courtesy, and did all that he could to avoid wounding his feelings. Nevertheless, he saw that in the pressure that could be brought to bear upon his captive, lay the best hope of winning an honourable and profitable peace from the French. John chafed bitterly at his detention in custody, and got little consolation from finding himself in the company of his ally David, King of Scotland, who had been a prisoner in England for ten years, ever since the battle of Neville's Cross. [Sidenote: =Misery and anarchy in France.--The Jacquerie.=] The difficulty in negociating a peace did not come from King John, but from the regency which replaced him at Paris. The French did not see why they should sign a humiliating treaty merely in order to deliver a harsh and not very popular king from confinement. But a series of disasters at last forced them to submit. The three years 1357-60 were almost the most miserable that France ever knew. The young Dauphin Charles, a mere lad, proved quite unable to keep order in the land; the barons did what they pleased; hordes of disbanded mercenary soldiers, whom the government could not pay, roamed plundering over the countryside side. The people of Paris broke out into sedition, under a bold citizen named Etienne Marcel, and put the Dauphin himself in durance for a time. Last and worst of all, the peasantry of Central France, driven to despair by the general misery of the times, rose in rebellion against all constituted authority, slew every man of gentle blood that they could lay hands on, and roamed about in huge bands, burning castles and manors, and plundering towns and villages. The horrors of the Jacquerie,[22] as this anarchic revolt was called, bid fair to destroy all government in France, and it was only by a desperate rally that those who had anything to lose succeeded in banding themselves together and crushing the insurgents. [Sidenote: =Edward again invades France.--Treaty of Bretigny.=]