These events in Castile encouraged Charles V. to carry out a long-cherished design for the reconquest of the English [Sidenote: Renewal of English war.] provinces. A pretext for a rupture was found in the discontent which was excited in Aquitaine by the heavy taxes levied by the Black Prince to defray the expenses of his Spanish expedition. In 1368 several of the Gascon nobles, regardless of the treaty of Bretigni, appealed to Charles V., as their suzerain, to redress their grievances. Charles delayed a final rupture until he had made his preparations, and had heard of the triumph of his ally in Castile. In 1369 he summoned the Black Prince to appear in Paris to answer the complaints of his subjects before the court of peers. Edward replied grimly that he would willingly go to Paris, but with sixty thousand men in his company. It was easier, however, to utter the threat than to carry it out. The conditions which had enabled the English to gain some conspicuous successes in the earlier war were now altered, and to some extent reversed. The wise government of Charles V. had already removed many of the administrative evils which had crippled France under his grandfather and his father. Thanks to du Guesclin, the French king could now put into the field a professional army under capable leaders, in place of the disorderly feudal levies which had been cut to pieces at Crecy and Poitiers. The Black Prince was no longer the active and resolute commander that he had shown himself before his illness, and he lost some of his most capable lieutenants, notably Chandos, who died in 1370. The provinces ceded at Bretigni had had some years’ experience of English rule, and their discontent was stimulated by a growing sense of national sympathy with the rest of France. Another very prominent cause of the reversal of military success in the years following 1369 is to be found in the cautious tactics deliberately adopted and enforced by Charles V. himself. For an invading army victory is imperatively necessary; for the defenders it is enough not to be defeated. Charles forbade his generals, no matter what provocation they received, to risk an engagement in the open field. They were to shut their troops in the strong towns, and to leave the English armies to be wasted by disease, by want of provisions, and by the difficulty of coercing a [Sidenote: English disasters.] hostile population. As the invaders departed, the French could harass their march, cut off stragglers and supplies, and occupy the territory which the enemy was compelled to evacuate. These tactics were eminently successful, and they were immensely aided by the support of the Castilian fleet, which enabled the French to gain a temporary naval ascendency. This deprived the English of direct communication with the coast of Aquitaine, and forced them to carry on military operations at a disastrous distance from their ultimate base of supplies. Almost the