The dauphin, Charles, was a young man, of a naturally sound and collected mind, but without experience, who had hitherto lived only in his father's court, and who could not help being deeply shocked and disquieted by such demands.

He was still more troubled when the estates demanded that the deputies, under the title of reformers, should traverse the provinces as a check upon the malversations of the royal officials, and that twenty- eight delegates, chosen from amongst the three orders, four prelates, twelve knights, and twelve burgesses, should be constantly placed near the king's person, "with power to do and order everything in the kingdom, just like the king himself, as well for the purpose of appointing and removing public officers as for other matters." It was taking away the entire government from the crown, and putting it into the hands of the estates.
The dauphin's surprise and suspicion were still more vivid when the deputies spoke to him about setting at liberty the King of Navarre, who had been imprisoned by King John, and told him that "since this deed of violence no good had come to the king or the kingdom, because of the sin of having imprisoned the said King of Navarre." And yet Charles the Bad was already as infamous as he has remained in history; he had labored to embroil the dauphin with his royal father; and there was no plot or intrigue, whether with the malcontents in France or with the King of England, in which he was not, with good reason, suspected of having been mixed up, and of being ever ready to be mixed up.

He was clearly a dangerous enemy for the public peace, as well as for the crown, and, for the states-general who were demanding his release, a bad associate.
[Illustration: Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, in Prison----335] In the face of such demands and such forebodings, the dauphin did all he could to gain time.

Before he gave an answer he must know, he said, what subvention the states-general would be willing to grant him.

The reply was a repetition of the promise of thirty thousand men-at-arms, together with an enumeration of the several taxes whereby there was a hope of providing for the expense.