A more general renewal of the war was rendered impossible by the eruption of the plague, which in the summer of 1348 carried off large numbers, first in the south of France,[23] from whence it extended to Paris and the towns of the north. Tumours under the arms and in the groin were the peculiarities of the disease, which almost always proved fatal. Out of twenty persons in a village, says a chronicler, not two remained. The towns of the south were especially depopulated, such as Marbonne, Montpellier, and Avignon. The Laura of Petrarch was amongst the victims. Eight hundred died each day in Paris, where the loss could not have been less than one hundred thousand. Amongst the consequences of the epidemic are mentioned a great scarcity of provisions and a complete suspense of education from the lack of teachers. TERRITORIAL ACQUISITION [Sidenote: [1343-1348 A.D.]] Whilst France was thus ravaged by pestilence and humiliated by defeat, Philip succeeded in annexing to the monarchy the important province of Dauphiné, which lay between its possessions of Burgundy and Provence, and gave France the entire region westward of the Alps. The two contiguous principalities and dynasties of Savoy and of Dauphiné had started up and grown together in continued rivalry. Although the Savoy princes were defeated in one great battle they were still more than a match for the dauphins, as the princes who kept their court at Vienne were called from the arms they had assumed. The dauphin had recourse to the aid of the king of France; and, by degrees, the protection which these afforded grew into suzerainty. Humbert, the last dauphin, was a strange and capricious character; he had the misfortune to have let fall from a window of his castle his only son, the child being dashed to pieces as he fell. This misfortune disturbed the reason of the prince, who determined to proceed to the Holy Land and sell or mortgage his possessions in order to raise funds for the purpose. He began by selling lands, which he possessed in Normandy, to John, duke of this province. At last the dauphin consented to sell the reversion of the principality. He agreed to appoint the second son of Philip of Valois, Philip of Orleans, as his future heir, in the event of his having no children.