But an event was shortly to happen which relieved France, for a while at least, from the presence of a foreign enemy. The misery of the land at last bent Charles to submission, and Edward III., weary of constant warfare in a famished country, at last concluded a peace. The incident which induced him to sign the Treaty of Brétigny was regarded by all his contemporaries as miraculous. The part which ‘our Lady of Charters’ played in this affair is recorded in the fascinating chronicles of Sir John Froissart. ‘Edward,’ he tells us, ‘having put the realm of France into great tribulation, intended to lay siege to Paris after August and not to return again to England till he had France at his pleasure. Leaving garrisons, therefore, to make war in France, Champagne, Poictou, Ponthieu, Vexin, Normandy and all the realm of France, he came into “the good country of Beauce” with the idea of staying in Brittany till the vintage season. But he was led to change his mind. ‘All this season the Duke of Normandy was at Paris, and his two brethren and the Duke of Orléans, their uncle, and their Counsels. They imagined well the courage of the King of England, and how that he and his men brought the realm of France into great poverty, and saw well how the realm could not long endure in that case, for the rents of the lords and of the churches were nigh lost in every part. As then there was a sage and discreet person Chancellor of France, called Sir William of Montague, Bishop of Terouenne, by whose counsel much of France was ruled, and good cause why, for ever his counsel was good and true, and with him there were two other clerks of great prudence, the Abbot of Cluny and the master of the Friars Preachers, called Sir Simon of Langres, a master in divinity; these two clerks, at the desire of the Duke of Normandy and of the whole Council of France, departed from Paris with certain articles of peace, and Sir Hugh of Geneve, Lord of Autun, in their company, and they went to the King of England, who rode in Beauce towards Galardon. These two clerks and two knights spake with the King and began to fall in treaty for a peace, to be had of him and his allies; to the which treaty the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Lancaster and the Earl of March were called. This treaty was not as then concluded, for it was long a-driving and always the King went forward. These ambassadors would not so leave the King, but still sued and followed on their purpose, for they saw how the French King was in so poor estate that the realm was likely to be in a great jeopardy, if the war continued a summer longer. And on the other side, the King of England required so great things and so prejudicial to the realm of France, that the lords would not agree thereto for their honours, so that all their treaty (the which endured a seventeen days, still following the King) they sent ever their process daily to the Duke of Normandy, to the city of Paris, ever desiring to have again answer what