The hostage sons proved themselves not more reliable as hostages than they had been as fighters. One of them, at least, yielded to the call of Paris, broke his parole and fled home. John’s paternal pride was profoundly outraged. “If honor is banished from every other spot,” he said, “it ought to remain sacred in the breast of kings.” He returned at once to London and gave himself up to king Edward. Again he found himself popular at the English court, and he passed a gay winter, entertaining Edward at Savoy House and being entertained in turn at the palace of Westminster. Before many months, however, he was stricken with a mortal illness and died without seeing France again. While king John was held prisoner by the English (1356-1360), his son the dauphin, afterwards Charles V, ruled or tried to rule in France. During his regency there appears one of the foremost characters known to the history of Paris, Étienne Marcel. This man belonged to an old family of drapers, and had achieved the position of the Provost of the Merchants, the chief administrative office in the city’s gift. The burghers of Paris were restless. The establishment of the States General had given them recognition of a kind and a consequent feeling of importance. Repeated tax levies had kept them in a constant state of irritation. John had crowded them out of the army, war, according to his theory, being a matter for nobles to handle. The ignominious defeat at Poitiers made them dissent cordially from this opinion. These were but a few of the causes stirring in the minds of the burghers. Now, with their jovial and improvident king a prisoner in England, France entrusted to an untried youth of nineteen, and England’s plans unknown but always threatening, the _bourgeois_ felt themselves to be facing both opportunity and responsibility. To test the prince seemed to be the first summons. Returning from Poitiers Charles took the title of Lieutenant-General, installed himself in the Louvre, summoned the States General, and entered into negotiations with Marcel. The provost either was really distrustful of the dauphin or he saw some advantage for his own ambition in setting the people against their lord. When he went to a conference with Charles he was supported by a body of men heavily armed, and a little later he expressed himself as so fearful of the prince’s integrity that he refused to go nearer to the Louvre than the church of Saint Germain l’Auxerrois, to the east of the fortress. Egged on by Marcel the States General did their utmost to torment the young regent. Undoubtedly they had grievances, but Charles was not at all responsible for the state of the country and the Assembly’s methods of improving conditions savored more of bullying than of coöperation.