Note 596 — Chapter XXV · THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR

The enormous ransom thus specified for King John was never paid. The three million gold crowns would have a purchasing power of perhaps forty or forty-five million dollars to-day. On the strength of the treaty provision John was immediately released from captivity. With curious disregard of the bad conditions prevailing in France as the result of foreign and civil war he began preparations for a crusade, which, however, he was soon forced to abandon. In 1364, attracted by the gayety of English life as contrasted with the wretchedness and gloom of his impoverished subjects, he went voluntarily to England, where he died before the festivities in honor of his coming were completed.