[23] [It had spread to France from Italy where its ravages were no less appalling. An extended notice of it is given in our history of Italy, Volume IX, where Boccaccio’s vivid description of its terrors may be found.] [Illustration] CHAPTER VI. JOHN THE GOOD AND CHARLES THE WISE [Sidenote: [1350-1380 A.D.]] The new king John was between thirty-one and thirty-two years of age. It was long since a king of France had ascended the throne in such critical circumstances. All the internal maladies which, ever since the days of Philip the Fair, had been undermining the constitution of the state had burst out at the first shock of external violence. The weakness of this monarchy, arbitrary without order, fiscal without finances, military without an army, which had failed to create for itself any other instrument or any other support than a body of legists; the fragility of this colossus with feet of clay was now revealed both to the foreigner and to France herself. A country desolated by plague, impoverished by a disastrous war and by a government more ruinous than plague and war, where the lowest depths of society were stirred by those dull mutterings which announce the distant tempest; a royalty despoiled, by deserved misfortunes, of the prestige of birth and grandeur which had survived its popularity; finally a war which set at stake not the position of some frontier but the existence of the dynasty and the independence of the nation: such was the inheritance which the first of the Valois had bequeathed to his son.[b] King John inaugurated his reign by debasing the coinage to meet the expenses of the coronation which was celebrated at Rheims, on the 26th of September, 1350, with all the accustomed splendour. The brilliant train of princes who accompanied him drew upon themselves not only the glances but the hopes of the entire population. Treachery, however, was on all sides. Already Philip of Valois had attempted to deal with it outside the regular forms of judicial procedure; the newly made king followed in his footsteps. Raoul, count of Eu and of Guines, constable of France, obtained of Edward III, whose prisoner he was, liberty on parole, and returned to Paris to present himself at court. John caused him to be arrested and confined in the Louvre. A few days afterwards the constable was beheaded, and his property given to John of Artois, who assumed the title of count of Eu. [Sidenote: [1350-1352 A.D.]]