King John, grateful for the love and devotion shown to him by his subjects under these trying circumstances, returned from captivity with the solemn intention of lightening the burdens which pressed upon them, and in consequence be began by spontaneously reducing the enormous wages which the tax-gatherers had hitherto received, and by abolishing the tolls on highways.  He also sold to the Jews, at a very high price, the right of remaining in the kingdom and of exercising any trade in it, and by this means he obtained a large sum of money.  He solemnly promised never again to debase the coin, and he endeavoured to make an equitable division of the taxes.  Unfortunately it was impossible to do without a public revenue, and it was necessary that the royal ransom should be paid off within six years.  The people, from whom taxes might be always extorted at pleasure, paid a good share of this, for the fifth of the three millions of ecus d’or was realised from the tax on salt, the thirteenth part from the duty on the sale of fermented liquors, and twelve deniers per pound from the tax on the value of all provisions sold and resold within the kingdom.  Commerce was subjected to a new tax called imposition foraine, a measure most detrimental to the trade and manufactures of the country, which were continually struggling under the pitiless oppression of the treasury.  Royal despotism was not always able to shelter itself under the sanction of the general and provincial councils, and a few provinces, which forcibly protested against this excise duty, were treated on the same footing as foreign states with relation to the transit of merchandise from them.  Other provinces compounded for this tax, and in this way, owing to the different arrangements in different places, a complicated system of exemptions and prohibitions existed which although most prejudicial to all industry, remained in force to a great extent until 1789.

When Charles V.—­surnamed the Wise—­ascended the throne in 1364, France, ruined by the disasters of the war, by the weight of taxation, by the reduction in her commerce, and by the want of internal security, exhibited everywhere a picture of misery and desolation; in addition to which, famine and various epidemics were constantly breaking out in various parts of the kingdom.  Besides this, the country was incessantly overrun by gangs of plunderers, who called themselves ecorcheurs, routiers, tardvenus, &c., and who were more dreaded by the country people even than the English had been.  Charles V., who was celebrated for his justice and for his economical and provident habits, was alone capable of establishing order in the midst of such general confusion.  Supported by the vote of the Assembly held at Compiegne in 1367, he remitted a moiety of the salt tax and diminished the number of the treasury agents, reduced their wages, and curtailed their privileges.  He inquired into all cases of embezzlement, so as to put a stop to