Maillart for answer smote at him, crying, "Traitor, _à mort, à mort_!" There was a stubborn fight, and Maillart felled the provost by a blow with his axe; six of the provost's companions were slain, and the remainder haled to prison. Next day the Dauphin entered Paris in triumph, and the popular leaders were executed on the Place de Grève. The provost's body was dragged to the court of the church of St. Catherine du Val des Ecoliers, where it lay naked that it might be seen of all: after a long exposure it was cast into the Seine. All the reforms were revoked by the king, but the remembrance of the time when the merchants and people of Paris had dared to speak to their royal lord face to face of justice and good government, was never obliterated. Meanwhile the land was a prey to anarchy. Law there was none. Bands of _routiers_, or organised brigands, English and French, ravaged and pillaged without let or hindrance. Eustache d'Aubrecicourt, with 10,000 men-at-arms, raided Champagne at his will and held a dozen fortresses. The peasants posted sentinels in the church towers while they worked in the fields, and took refuge by night in boats moored in the rivers. The English invasion of 1359 resembled a huge picnic or hunting expedition. The king of England and his barons brought their hunters, falcons, dogs and fishing tackle. They marched leisurely to Bourg-la-Reine, less than two leagues from Paris, pillaged the surrounding country and turned to Chartres, where tempest and sickness forced Edward III. to come to terms. After the treaty of Bretigny, in 1360, the Parisians saw their good King John again, who was ransomed for a sum equal to about ten million pounds of present-day value. The memory of this and other enormous ransoms exacted by the English endured for centuries, and when a Frenchman had paid his creditors he would say,--_j'ai payé mes Anglais_.[84] ("I have paid my English.") A magnificent reception was accorded to the four English barons who came to sign the Peace at Paris. They were taken to the Sainte-Chapelle and shown the fairest relics and richest jewels in the world, and each was given a spine from the crown of thorns, which he deemed the noblest jewel that could be presented to him.