The dauphin was still more anxious to send the English home because “France was in its last throes, and for so little as its woes might last it might perish.” A conference was opened at Bretigny, near Chartres, the 1st of May, 1360. The English negotiators demanded in the first place the whole crown of France; then they limited themselves to what had belonged to the Plantagenets; finally Edward III contented himself with the duchy of Aquitaine and all its dependencies (Gascony, Poitou, Saintonge, Aunis, Agénois, Périgord, the Limousin, Quercy, Rouergue, and Angoumois), ceded in independent sovereignty, and Calais with the counties of Ponthieu and Guines, also the viscounty of Montreuil. Thus ended the first period of the Hundred Years’ War. The king’s ransom was fixed at three million gold crowns;[27] in guarantee for which sum John had to leave in Edward’s hands a certain number of hostages taken from the highest nobles and richest bourgeoisie of the land. Edward carried them with him across Normandy, which he harassed once more, in order to embark at Honfleur, the Havre of that day. The provinces promised to the king of England were given up, despite the protests against this pretended restitution by the great majority who said, with the inhabitants of La Rochelle, “We will acknowledge the English with our lips, but never with our hearts.” For a whole year they refused to open their gates to the English. At Abbeville things went still better. When the patriotic citizens saw in their streets the soldiers who for fifteen years had trampled France under foot, they were unable to restrain themselves; secret meetings were held; then a riot broke out which was quickly suppressed, but not before a rich citizen, Ringois, was captured. The English commandant used, however, moderation and offered Ringois his liberty on sole condition that he would take the oath of allegiance to Edward III. Ringois refused. They took him to Dover, threatening him this time with death if he were obstinate, but he persisted. They brought him even to the platform of the fortress and showed him the furthermost parapet with the sea beating furiously at its feet; if he said one word he would be saved. He still refused and the guard threw him off. There still remained to find the money for the first payment of the ransom, and it was obtained by a shameful expedient. “The king of France,” says Matteo Villani[q] the historian, “sold his flesh and blood.” For 600,000 florins he bestowed his daughter Isabella, then only eleven years of age, on Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the son of the fiercest tyrant in Italy, who hunted men in the streets of his capital and threw them living into the flames. Thanks to this money the king left Calais on the 25th of October, 1360. THE LAST YEARS OF KING JOHN (1360-1364 A.D.) [Sidenote: [1360-1364 A.D.]]