With the country torn up by war and his treasury bankrupt, John II convoked the States General. He needed stout levies of men and stouter levies of money. The Archbishop of Rouen, then the royal chancellor, haughtily presented the King's demands. But the imperious chancellor had counted without Etienne Marcel, one of the greatest men who ever added luster to the name of Gaul. The great commoner, deputed to the States General by the city of Paris and indignant at seeing the nobility and clergy disregard the just protests of the deputies of the bourgeoisie, thundered against the odious practice, and, sustained by the menacing attitude of the Parisians, he uttered the memorable declaration that _the alliance of the nobility and the clergy was no longer to be of controlling force upon the deputies of the bourgeoisie_, and that if, contrary to the vote of the bourgeoisie, the seigneurs and prelates granted levies of men and moneys to the King without any guarantee as to the proper employment of such forces and funds for the public welfare, the towns would have to refuse obedience to such decrees and furnish neither men nor moneys to the crown. These energetic and wise words, never heard before, imposed upon the States General. In the name of the deputies of the bourgeoisie, Marcel submits to the crown the conditions under which the third estate would consent to grant the men and subsidies asked for; and the crown accepts, knowing the people of Paris stood ready to sustain their spokesman. Unfortunately, and the experience was to be more than once made by Marcel, he soon realized the hollowness of royal promises. The moneys granted by the national assembly are insanely dissipated by the King and his courtiers. The levies of men, instead of being employed against the English, whose invasion spread over wider areas of the national territory, are turned to the private wars of the King against some of the seigneurs, and intended either to protect or enlarge his own domains. The audacity of the English redoubles; they break the truce and threaten the very heart of the land; and King John then hastily summons his faithful and well-beloved nobility to join him in the defence of the nation.