Defection and even treason brought trouble into the court, the councils, and even the family of John.

To get the better of them he at one time heaped favors upon the men he feared, at another he had them arrested, imprisoned, and even beheaded in his presence.

He gave his daughter Joan in marriage to Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, and, some few months afterwards, Charles himself, the real or presumed head of all the traitors, was seized, thrown into prison, and treated with extreme rigor, in spite of the supplications of his wife, who vigorously took the part of her husband against her father.
After four years thus consumed in fruitless endeavors, by turns violently and feebly enforced, to reorganize an army and a treasury, and to purchase fidelity at any price or arbitrarily strike down treason, John was obliged to recognize his powerlessness and to call to his aid the French nation, still so imperfectly formed, by convoking at Paris, for the 30th of November, 1355, the states-general of _Langue d'oil_.

that is, Northern France, separated by the Dordogne and the Garonne from _Langue d'oc,_ which had its own assembly distinct.

Auvergne belonged to _Langue d'oil_.
It is certain that neither this assembly nor the king who convoked it had any clear and fixed idea of what they were meeting together to do.