[Footnote 410: Migne, Dictionnaire des sciences occultes, Paris, 2 vols. in large 8vo, under the word Exorcisme.]

There was nothing suspicious in Jeanne's attitude. No wild agitation, no frenzy. Merely anxious and intreating, she dragged herself on her knees towards the priest. She did not flee before God's holy name. Messire Jean Fournier concluded that no devil was within her.

Left alone in the house with Catherine, Jeanne, who now understood the meaning of the ceremony, showed strong resentment towards Messire Jean Fournier. She reproached him with having suspected her: "It was wrong of him," she said to her hostess, "for, having heard my confession, he ought to have known me."[411]

[Footnote 411: Trial, vol. ii, p. 446.]

She would have thanked the priest of Vaucouleurs had she known how he was furthering the fulfilment of her mission by subjecting her to this ordeal. Convinced that this maiden was not inspired by the devil, Sire Robert must have been driven to conclude that she might be inspired by God; for apparently he was a man of simple reasoning. He wrote to the Dauphin Charles concerning the young saint; and doubtless he bore witness to the innocence and goodness he beheld in her.[412]

[Footnote 412: Trial, vol. iii, p. 115. Journal du siege, p. 48. Mirouer des femmes vertueuses in the Trial, vol. iv, p. 267.]

Although it looked as if the Captain would have to resign his command to my Lord de Vergy, Sire Robert did not intend to quit his country where he had dealings with all parties. Indeed he cared little enough about the Dauphin Charles, and it is difficult to see what personal interest he can have had in recommending him a prophetess. Without pretending to discover what was passing in his mind, one may believe that he wrote to the Dauphin on Jeanne's behalf at the request of some of those persons who thought well of her, probably of Bertrand de Poulengy and of Jean de Metz. These two men-at-arms, seeing that the Dauphin's cause was lost in the Lorraine Marches, had every reason for proceeding to the banks of the Loire, where they might still fight with the hope of advantage.

On the eve of setting out, they appeared disposed to take the seeress with them, and even to defray all her expenses, reckoning on repaying themselves from the royal coffers at Chinon, and deriving honour and advantage from so rare a marvel. But they waited to be assured of the Dauphin's consent.[413]

[Footnote 413: Extract from the eighth report of Guillaume Charrier, in the Trial, vol. v, pp. 257 et seq.]

Meanwhile Jeanne could not rest. She came and went from Vaucouleurs to Burey and from Burey to Vaucouleurs. She counted the days; time dragged for her as for a woman with child.[414]

[Footnote 414: Trial, vol. ii, p. 447.]

At the end of January, feeling she could wait no longer, she resolved to go to the Dauphin Charles alone. She clad herself in garments belonging to Durand Lassois, and with this kind cousin set forth on the road to France.[415] A man of Vaucouleurs, one Jacques Alain, accompanied them.[416] Probably these two men expected that the damsel would herself realise the impossibility of such a journey and that they would not go very far. That is what happened. The three travellers had barely journeyed a league from Vaucouleurs, when, near the Chapel of Saint Nicholas, which rises in the valley of Septfonds, in the middle of the great wood of Saulcy, Jeanne changed her mind and said to her comrades that it was not right of her to set out thus. Then they all three returned to the town.[417]

[Footnote 415: Ibid., vol. i, p. 53; vol. ii, pp. 443 et seq.]

[Footnote 416: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 445-447.]

[Footnote 417: Ibid., pp. 447-457.]

At length a royal messenger brought King Charles's reply to the Commander of Vaucouleurs. The messenger was called Colet de Vienne.[418] His name indicates that he came from the province which the Dauphin had governed before the death of the late King, and which had remained unswervingly faithful to the unfortunate prince. The reply was that Sire Robert should send the young saint to Chinon.[419]

[Footnote 418: Ibid., p. 406. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. 160, note 6.]

[Footnote 419: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 314, 315. Anonymous poem on the arrival of the Maid, in the Trial, vol. v, p. 30.]

That which Jeanne had demanded and which it had seemed impossible to obtain was granted. She was to be taken to the King as she had desired and within the time fixed by herself. But this departure, for which she had so ardently longed, was delayed several days by a remarkable incident. The incident shows that the fame of the young prophetess had gone out through Lorraine; and it proves that in those days the great of the land had recourse to saints in their hour of need.

Jeanne was summoned to Nancy by my Lord the Duke of Lorraine. Furnished with a safe-conduct that the Duke had sent her, she set forth in rustic jerkin and hose on a nag given her by Durand Lassois and Jacques Alain. It had cost them twelve francs which Sire Robert repaid them later out of the royal revenue.[420] From Vaucouleurs to Nancy is twenty-four leagues. Jean de Metz accompanied her as far as Toul; Durand Lassois went with her the whole way.[421]

[Footnote 420: Durand Lassois says it cost twelve francs, Jean de Metz, sixteen. "Ce serait aujourd'hui un cheval de cent ecus." It would be a horse worth one hundred crowns to-day (L. Champion, Jeanne d'Arc ecuyere, 1901, p. 55). According to the reckoning of P. Clement, from 400 to 800 francs (Jacques Coeur et Charles VII, 1873, p. lxvi).]

[Footnote 421: Trial, vol. i, pp. 54, 222; vol. ii, pp. 391, 406, 432, 437, 442-450, 456, 457; vol. iii, pp. 87, 115. Extract from the eighth account of Guillaume Charrier and from the thirteenth account of Hemon Raguier, in the Trial, vol. v, pp. 257 et seq.]

Before going to the Duke of Lorraine's palace, Jeanne ascended the valley of the Meurthe and went to worship at the shrine of the great Saint Nicholas, whose relics were preserved in the Benedictine chapel of Saint-Nicholas-du-Port. She did well; for Saint Nicholas was the patron saint of travellers.[422]

[Footnote 422: Et postquam ipsa Johanna fuit in peregrinacio in Sancto Nicolas et exstitit versus dominum ducem Lotharingiae, says Bertrand de Poulengy, Trial, vol. ii, p. 457. Cf. The Evidence of J. Robert, in E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, Nouvelles recherches sur la famille de Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 33, 34. It is impossible to find in the text of the Trial a redundancy such as the evidence of D. Lannois and the woman Le Royer would lead us to expect. A. Renard, Jeanne d'Arc. Examen d'une question de lieu, Orleans, 1861, in 8vo, 16 pages. G. de Braux, Jeanne d'Arc a Saint-Nicolas, Nancy, 1889, in 8vo. De Pimodan, La premiere etape de Jeanne d'Arc, 1890, in 8vo, with maps.]



CHAPTER IV

THE JOURNEY TO NANCY—THE ITINERARY OF VAUCOULEURS—TO SAINTE-CATHERINE-DE-FIERBOIS

By giving his eldest daughter, Isabelle, the heiress of Lorraine, in marriage to Rene, the second son of Madame Yolande, Queen of Sicily and of Jerusalem, and Duchess of Anjou,[423] Duke Charles II of Lorraine, who was in alliance with the English, had recently done his cousin and friend, the Duke of Burgundy, a bad turn. Rene of Anjou, now in his twentieth year, was a man of culture as much in love with sound learning as with chivalry, and withal kind, affable, and gracious. When not engaged in some military expedition and in wielding the lance he delighted to illuminate manuscripts. He had a taste for flower-decked gardens and stories in tapestry; and like his fair cousin the Duke of Orleans he wrote poems in French.[424] Invested with the duchy of Bar by the Cardinal Duke of Bar, his great-uncle, he would inherit the duchy of Lorraine after the death of Duke Charles which could not be far off. This marriage was rightly regarded as a clever stroke on the part of Madame Yolande. But he who reigns must fight. The Duke of Burgundy, ill content to see a prince of the house of Anjou, the brother-in-law of Charles of Valois, established between Burgundy and Flanders, stirred up against Rene the Count of Vaudemont, who was a claimant of the inheritance of Lorraine. The Angevin policy rendered a reconciliation between the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France difficult. Thus was Rene of Anjou involved in the quarrels of his father-in-law of Lorraine. It befell that in this year, 1429, he was waging war against the citizens of Metz, the War of the Basketful of Apples.[425] It was so called because the cause of war was a basketful of apples which had been brought into the town of Metz without paying duty to the officers of the Duke of Lorraine.[426]

[Footnote 423: Le Pere Anselme, Histoire genealogique de la maison de France, vol. ii, p. 218. Ludovic Drapeyron, Jeanne d'Arc et Philippe le Bon, in Revue de Geographie, November, 1886, p. 236. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, pp. lxvi, cxcix.]

[Footnote 424: Oeuvres du Roi Rene, by Le Comte de Quatrebarbes, Angers, 1845, vol. i, preface, pp. lxxvi et seq. Lecoy de la Marche, Le Roi Rene, sa vie, son administration, ses travaux artistiques et litteraires, Paris, 1875, 2 vols. in 8vo, and Giry, Review in the Revue critique.]

[Footnote 425: La guerre de la hottee de pommes.]

[Footnote 426: Dom Calmet, Histoire de Lorraine, vol. ii, col. 695, 703.]

Meanwhile Rene's mother was sending convoys of victuals from Blois to the citizens of Orleans, besieged by the English.[427] Although she was not then on good terms with the counsellors of her son-in-law, King Charles, she was vigilant in opposing the enemies of the kingdom when they threatened her own duchy of Anjou. Rene, Duke of Bar, had therefore ties of kindred, friendship, and interest binding him at the same time to the English and Burgundian party as well as to the party of France. Such was the situation of most of the French nobles. Rene's communications with the Commander of Vaucouleurs were friendly and constant.[428] It is possible that Sire Robert may have told him that he had a damsel at Vaucouleurs who was prophesying concerning the realm of France. It is possible that the Duke of Bar, curious to see her, may have had her sent to Nancy, where he was to be towards the 20th of February. But it is much more likely that Rene of Anjou thought less about the Maid of Vaucouleurs, whom he had never seen, than about the little Moor and the jester who enlivened the ducal palace.[429] In this month of February, 1429, he was neither desirous nor able to concern himself greatly with the affairs of France; and although brother-in-law to King Charles, he was preparing not to succour the town of Orleans, but to besiege the town of Metz.[430]

[Footnote 427: Trial, vol. iii, p. 93.]

[Footnote 428: S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, pp. cxcvii, clxxxvii, clxxxviii, and 236. The register of the Archives of La Meuse, B. 1051, bears trace of a regular correspondence between the Duke of Bar and Baudricourt.]

[Footnote 429: Chronique du doyen de Saint-Thibaud, in Dom Calmet, Histoire de Lorraine, proofs and illustrations, vol. ii, col. cxcix. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, pp. cxcvii et seq.]

[Footnote 430: Letter from Jean Desch, Secretary of the town of Metz, in the Trial, vol. v, p. 355. Dom Calmet, Histoire de Lorraine, vol. ii, proofs and illustrations, col. cxcix.]

Old and ill, Duke Charles dwelt in his palace with his paramour Alison du Mai, a bastard and a priest's daughter, who had driven out the lawful wife, Dame Marguerite of Bavaria. Dame Marguerite was pious and high-born, but old and ugly, while Madame Alison was pretty. She had borne Duke Charles several children.[431]

[Footnote 431: S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. cc, note.]

The following story appears the most authentic. There were certain worthy persons at Nancy who wanted Duke Charles to take back his good wife. To persuade him to do so they had recourse to the exhortations of a saint, who had revelations from Heaven, and who called herself the Daughter of God. By these persons the damsel of Domremy was represented to the enfeebled old Duke as being a saint who worked miracles of healing. By their advice he had her summoned in the hope that she possessed secrets which should alleviate his sufferings and keep him alive.

As soon as he saw her he asked whether she could not restore him to his former health and strength.

She replied that "of such things" she knew nothing. But she warned him that his ways were evil, and that he would not be cured until he had amended them. She enjoined upon him to send away Alison, his concubine, and to take back his good wife.[432]

[Footnote 432: Trial, vol. iii, p. 87. Dom Calmet, Histoire de Lorraine, vol. iii, proofs and illustrations, col. vj.]

No doubt she had been told to say something of this kind; but it also came from her own heart, for she loathed bad women.

Jeanne had come to the Duke because it was his due, because a little saint must not refuse when a great lord wishes to consult her, and because in short she had been brought to Nancy. But her mind was elsewhere; of nought could she think but of saving the realm of France.

Reflecting that Madame Yolande's son with a goodly company of men-at-arms would be of great aid to the Dauphin, she asked the Duke of Lorraine, as she took her leave, to send this young knight with her into France.

"Give me your son," she said, "with men-at-arms as my escort. In return I will pray to God for your restoration to health."

The Duke did not give her men-at-arms; neither did he give her the Duke of Bar, the heir of Lorraine, the ally of the English, who was nevertheless to join her soon beneath the standard of King Charles. But he gave her four francs and a black horse.[433]

[Footnote 433: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 391, 444.]

Perhaps it was on her return from Nancy that she wrote to her parents asking their pardon for having left them. The fact that they received a letter and forgave is all that is known.[434] One cannot forbear surprise that Jacques d'Arc, all through the month that his daughter was at Vaucouleurs, should have remained quietly at home, when previously, after having merely dreamed of her being with men-at-arms, he had threatened that if his sons did not drown her he would with his own hands. For he must have been aware that at Vaucouleurs she was living with men-at-arms. Knowing her temperament, he had displayed great simplicity in letting her go. One cannot help supposing that those pious persons who believed in Jeanne's goodness, and desired her to be taken into France for the saving of the kingdom, must have undertaken to reassure her father and mother concerning their daughter's manner of life; perhaps they even gave the simple folk to understand that if Jeanne did go to the King her family would derive therefrom honour and advantage.

[Footnote 434: Ibid., vol. i, p. 129.]

Before or after her journey to Nancy (which is not known), certain of the townsfolk of Vaucouleurs who believed in the young prophetess either had made, or purchased for her ready made, a suit of masculine clothing, a jerkin, cloth doublet, hose laced on to the coat, gaiters, spurs, a whole equipment of war. Sire Robert gave her a sword.[435]

[Footnote 435: Trial, vol. i, p. 54; vol. ii, pp. 438, 445, 447, 457. Relation du greffier de La Rochelle, in the Revue historique, vol. iv, p. 336.]

She had her hair cut round like a boy.[436] Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy, with their servants Jean de Honecourt and Julien, were to accompany her as well as the King's messenger, Colet de Vienne, and the bowman Richard.[437] There was still some delay and councils were held, for the soldiers of Antoine de Lorraine, Lord of Joinville, infested the country. Throughout the land there was nothing but pillage, robbery, murder, cruel tyranny, the ravishing of women, the burning of churches and abbeys, and the perpetration of horrible crimes. Those were the hardest times ever known to man.[438] But the damsel was not afraid, and said: "In God's name! take me to the gentle Dauphin, and fear not any trouble or hindrance we may meet."[439]

[Footnote 436: Relation du greffier de La Rochelle, in the Revue historique, ibid.]

[Footnote 437: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 406, 432, 442, 457; vol. iii, p. 209. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, pp. xcv, 143 note 3. G. de Braux and E. de Bouteiller, Nouvelles recherches, pp. xxix et seq.]

[Footnote 438: Les routiers en Lorraine, in the Journal de la Societe archeologique de Lorraine, 1866, p. 161. Dr. A. Lapierre, La guerre de cent ans dans l'Argonne et le Rethelois, Sedan, 1900, in 8vo.]

[Footnote 439: Journal du siege (interpolation); Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 272 (a document of doubtful authority owing to its hagiographical character).]

At length, on a day in February, so it is said, the little company issued forth from Vaucouleurs by La Porte de France.[440]

[Footnote 440: Trial, vol. i, p. 54; vol. ii, p. 437. Chronique du Mont-Saint-Michel, vol. i, p. 30. De Boismarmin, Memoire sur la date de l'arrivee de Jeanne d'Arc a Chinon, in the Bulletin du comite des travaux historiques et scientifiques, 1892, pp. 350-359. Ulysse Chevalier, L'abjuration de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 10, note 1. Jeanne had returned to Vaucouleurs about the first Sunday in Lent, the 13th of February, 1429 (Trial, vol. iii, p. 437). Bertrand de Poulengy says that the journey to Chinon (6th March) lasted eleven days, and that sometimes they travelled by night only (ibid.). It is difficult to admit that they started from Vaucouleurs on the 23rd of February, and that about 660 kilometres were traversed in eleven days.]

A few friends who had followed her so far watched her go. Among them were her hosts, Henri Leroyer and Catherine, and Messire Jean Colin, canon of Saint-Nicolas, near Vaucouleurs, to whom Jeanne had confessed several times.[441] They trembled for their saint as they thought of the perils of the way and the length of the journey.

[Footnote 441: Trial, vol. ii, pp. 431, 446.]

"How can you," they asked her, "set forth on such a journey when there are men-at-arms on every hand?" But out of the serene peace of her heart she answered them:

"I do not fear men-at-arms; my way has been made plain before me. If there be men-at-arms my Lord God will make a way for me to go to my Lord Dauphin. For that am I come."[442]

[Footnote 442: Ibid., p. 449.]

Sire Robert was present at her departure. According to the customary formula he took an oath from each of the men-at-arms that they would surely and safely conduct her whom he confided to them. Then, being a man of little faith, he said to Jeanne in lieu of farewell: "Go! and come what may."[443] And the little company went off into the mist, which at that season envelops the meadows of the Meuse.

[Footnote 443: Ibid., vol. i, p. 55.]

They were obliged to avoid frequented roads and to beware especially of passing by Joinville, Montiers-en-Saulx and Sailly, where there were soldiers of the hostile party. Sire Bertrand and Jean de Metz were accustomed to such stealthy expeditions; they knew the byways and were acquainted with useful precautions, such as binding up the horses' feet in linen so as to deaden the sound of hoofs on the ground.[444]

[Footnote 444: De Pimodan, La premiere etape de Jeanne d'Arc, Paris, 1891, in 8vo, with maps.]

At nightfall, having escaped all danger, the company approached the right bank of the Marne and reached the Abbey of Saint-Urbain.[445] From time immemorial it had been a place of refuge, and in those days its abbot was Arnoult of Aulnoy, a kinsman of Robert of Baudricourt.[446] The gate of the plain edifice opened for the travellers who passed beneath the groined vaulting of its roof.[447] The abbey included a building set apart for strangers. There they found the resting-place of the first stage of their journey.

[Footnote 445: Trial, vol. i, p. 54.]

[Footnote 446: Jolibois, Dictionnaire historique de la Haute-Marne, p. 492.]

[Footnote 447: De Pimodan, La premiere etape de Jeanne d'Arc, loc. cit.]

On the right of the outer door was the abbey church wherein were preserved the relics of Pope Saint Urbain. On the 24th of February, in the morning, Jeanne attended conventual mass there.[448] Then she and her companions took horse again. Crossing the Marne by the bridge opposite Saint-Urbain, they pressed on towards France.

[Footnote 448: Trial, vol. i, pp. 54, 55.]

They had still one hundred and twenty-five leagues to cover and three rivers to cross, in a country infested with brigands. Through fear of the enemy they journeyed by night.[449] When they lay down on the straw the damsel, keeping her hose laced to her coat, slept in her clothes, under a covering, between Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy in whom she felt confidence. They said afterwards that they never desired the damsel because of the holiness they beheld in her;[450] that may or may not be believed.

[Footnote 449: Ibid., vol. iii, p. 437. According to the somewhat improbable testimony of Bertrand de Poulengy. See ante, p. 96, note 6.]

[Footnote 450: Trial, vol. ii, p. 457.]

Jean de Metz was filled with no such ardent faith in the prophetess, since he inquired of her: "Will you really do what you say?"

To which she replied: "Have no fear. I do what I am commanded to do. My brethren in Paradise tell me what I have to do. It is now four or five years since my brethren in Paradise and Messire told me that I must go forth to war to deliver the realm of France."[451]

[Footnote 451: Ibid., pp. 437, 438.]

These rude comrades did not all preserve an attitude of religious respect in her presence. Certain mocked her and diverted themselves by talking before her as if they belonged to the English party. Sometimes, as a joke, they got up a false alarm and pretended to turn back. Their jests were wasted. She believed them, but she was not afraid, and would say gravely to those who thought to frighten her with the English: "Be sure not to flee. I tell you in God's name, they will not harm you."[452]

[Footnote 452: Ibid., vol. iii, p. 199.]

Ever at the approach of danger whether real or feigned, there came to her lips the words of encouragement: "Do not be afraid. You will see how graciously the fair Dauphin will look upon us when we come to Chinon."[453]

[Footnote 453: Ibid., vol. ii, p. 458.]

Her greatest grief was that she could not pray in church as often as she would like. Every day she repeated: "If we could, we should do well to hear mass."[454]

[Footnote 454: Trial, vol. ii, p. 438.]

As they avoided high roads they were not often in the way of bridges; and they were frequently forced to ford rivers in flood. They crossed the Aube, near Bar-sur-Aube, the Seine near Bar-sur-Seine, the Yonne opposite Auxerre, where Jeanne heard mass in the church of Saint-Etienne; then they reached the town of Gien, on the right bank of the Loire.[455]

[Footnote 455: Ibid., vol. i, p. 54; vol. ii, p. 437.]

At length these Lorrainers beheld a French town loyal to the King of France. They had travelled seventy-five leagues through the enemy's country without being attacked or molested. Afterwards this was considered miraculous. But was it impossible for seven or eight Armagnac horsemen to traverse English and Burgundian lands without misadventure? The Commander of Vaucouleurs frequently sent letters to the Dauphin which reached him, and the Dauphin was in the habit of despatching messengers to the Commander; Colet de Vienne had just borne his message.[456]

[Footnote 456: Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 406, 432, 445, 448, 457.]

In point of fact the followers of the Dauphin ran risks well nigh as great in the provinces under his sway as in lands subject to other masters.[457]

[Footnote 457: Monstrelet, vol. v, p. 269. Th. Basin, vol. i, p. 44. Bueil, Le jouvencel, introduction. Royal Pardons, in E. Boutaric, Institutions militaires de la France avant les armees permanentes.... 1863, in 8vo, p. 266. Recit du prieur de Droillet, ed. Quicherat, in Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes, fourth series, vol. iii, p. 359. Mantellier, Histoire de la communaute des marchands frequentant la riviere de Loire, vol. i, p. 195. Le P. H. Denifle, La desolation des eglises, monasteres, hopitaux en France, vers le milieu du XV'e siecle, Macon, in 8vo.]

Freebooters in the pay of King Charles, when they pillaged travellers and held them to ransom, did not stay to ask whether they were Armagnacs or Burgundians. Indeed, it was after their passage of the Loire that Bertrand de Poulengy and his companions found themselves exposed to the greatest danger.

Informed of their approach, certain men-at-arms of the French party went before and lay in ambush, waiting to surprise them. They intended to capture the damsel, cast her into a pit, and keep her there beneath a great stone, in the hope that the King who had sent for her would give a large sum for her rescue.[458] It was the custom for freebooters and mercenaries thus to cast travellers into pits delivering them on payment of ransom. Eighteen years before, at Corbeil, five men had been kept in a pit on bread and water by Burgundians. Three of them died, being unable to pay the ransom.[459] Such a fate very nearly befell Jeanne. But the wretches who were lying in wait for her, at the moment when they should have struck did nothing, wherefore is unknown, perhaps because they were afraid of not being the stronger.[460]

[Footnote 458: Trial, vol. iii, p. 203.]

[Footnote 459: Abbe J.-J. Bourasse, Les miracles de Madame Sainte Katerine de Fierboys en Touraine, d'apres un manuscrit de la Bibliotheque Imperiale, Paris, in 12mo, 1858, p. 28.]

[Footnote 460: I have here interwoven the account given by Seguin, Trial, vol. iii, p. 203, with that of Touroulde, Trial, vol. iii, pp. 86, 87. It seems to me the same incident reported summarily by the former, inexactly by the latter.]

From Gien, the little company followed the northern boundary of the duchy of Berry, crossed into Blesois, possibly passed through Selles-sur-Cher and Saint-Aignan, then, having entered Touraine, reached the green slopes of Fierbois.[461] There one of the two heavenly ladies, who daily discoursed familiarly with the peasant girl, had her most famous sanctuary; there it was that Saint Catherine received multitudes of pilgrims and worked great miracles. According to popular belief the origin of her worship in this place was warlike and national and dated back to the beginning of French history. It was known that after his victory over the Saracens at Poitiers Charles Martel had placed his sword in the oratory of the Blessed Catherine.[462] But it must be admitted that since then the sanctuary had long suffered from desertion and neglect. Rather more than forty years before the coming of the damsel from Domremy, its walls in the depths of a wood were overrun by briers and brambles.

[Footnote 461: Trial, vol. i, pp. 56, 75; vol. iii, pp. 3, 21; vol. v, p. 378.]

[Footnote 462: That Saint Catherine was known in the west shortly before the Crusades is possible, but not that her worship should date back to Charles Martel; at any rate it flourished in the days of Jeanne d'Arc. Cf. H. Moranville, Un pelerinage en Terre sainte et au Sinai au XV'e siecle, in the Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes, vol. lxvi (1905), pp. 70 et seq.]

In those days it was not uncommon for saints of both sexes, if they had suffered from some unjust neglect, to come and complain to some pious person of the wrong being done them on earth. They appeared possibly to a monk, to a peasant or a citizen, denounced the impiety of the faithful in terms urgent and sometimes violent, and commanded him to reinstate their worship and restore their sanctuary. And this is what Madame Saint Catherine did. In the year 1375 she entrusted a knight of the neighbourhood of Fierbois, one Jean Godefroy, who was blind and paralysed, with the restoration of her oratory to its old brilliance and fame, promising to cure him if he would pray for nine days in the place where Charles Martel had put his sword. Jean Godefroy had himself carried to the deserted chapel, but beforehand his servants must perforce hew a way through the thicket with their axes. Madame Saint Catherine restored to Jean Godefroy the use of his eyes and his limbs, and it was by this benefit that she recalled to the people of Touraine the glory they had slighted. The oratory was repaired; the faithful again wended their way thither, and miracles abounded. At first the saint healed the sick; then, when the land was ravaged by war, it was her office more especially to deliver from the hands of the English such prisoners as had recourse to her. Sometimes she rendered captives invisible to their guards; sometimes she broke bonds, chains, and locks; to wit, those of a nobleman by name Cazin du Boys, who in 1418 was taken with the garrison of Beaumont-sur-Oise. Locked in an iron cage, bound with a strong rope on which slept a Burgundian, he thought on Madame Saint Catherine, and dedicated himself to this glorious virgin. Immediately the cage was opened. Sometimes she even constrained the English to unchain their prisoners themselves and set them free without ransom. That was a great miracle. One no less great was worked by her on Perrot Chapon, of Saint-Sauveur, near Luzarches. For a month Perrot had been in bonds in an English prison, when he dedicated himself to Saint Catherine and fell asleep. He awoke, still bound, in his own house.

Generally she helped those who helped themselves. Such was the case of Jean Ducoudray, citizen of Saumur, a prisoner in the castle of Belleme in 1429. He commended his soul devoutly to Saint Catherine, then leapt forth, throttled the guard, climbed the ramparts, dropped the height of two lances, and went out a free man into the country.[463]

[Footnote 463: Les miracles de Madame Sainte Katerine, passim. G. Launay, Article in Bull. soc. archeol. du Vendomois, 1880, vol. xix, pp. 23-25.]

Perhaps these miracles would have been less frequent had the English been in greater force in France; but their men were few: in Normandy they intrenched themselves in towns, abandoning the open country to soldiers of fortune who ranged the district and captured convoys, thus greatly promoting the intervention of Madame Saint Catherine.[464]

[Footnote 464: G. Lefevre-Pontalis, La guerre des partisans dans la Haute Normandie (1424-1429), in Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes (1893-1896).]

The prisoners, who had become her votaries and whom she had delivered, discharged their vows by making the pilgrimage to Fierbois. In her chapel there, they hung the cords and chains with which they had been bound, their armour, and sometimes, in special cases, the armour of the enemy.

This had been done nine months before Jeanne's coming to Fierbois by a certain knight, Jean du Chastel. He had escaped from the hands of a captain, who accused him of having committed treason thereby, alleging that du Chastel had given him his word of honour. Du Chastel on the other hand maintained that he had not sworn, and he challenged the captain to meet him in single combat. The issue of the combat proved right to be on the side of the French knight; for with the aid of Madame Saint Catherine he was victorious. In return he came to Fierbois to offer to his holy protectress the armour of the vanquished Englishman, in the presence of my Lord, the Bastard of Orleans, of Captain La Hire and several other nobles.[465]

[Footnote 465: Les miracles de Madame Sainte Katerine, passim.]

Jeanne must have delighted to hear tell of such miracles, or others like them, and to see so many weapons hanging from the chapel walls. She must have been well pleased that the saint who visited her at all hours and gave her counsel should so manifestly appear the friend of poor soldiers and peasants cast into bonds, cages and pits, or hanged on trees by the Godons.

She prayed in the chapel and heard two masses.[466]

[Footnote 466: Trial, vol. i, p. 75.]



CHAPTER V

THE SIEGE OF ORLEANS FROM THE 12TH OF OCTOBER, 1428, TILL THE 6TH OF MARCH, 1429

Since the victory of Verneuil and the conquest of Maine, the English had advanced but little in France and their actual possessions there were becoming less and less secure.[467] If they spared the lands of the Duke of Orleans it was not on account of any scruple. Albeit on the banks of the Loire it was held dishonourable to seize the domains of a noble when he was a prisoner,[468] everything is fair in war. The Regent had not scrupled to seize the duchy of Alencon when its duke was a prisoner.[469] The truth is that by bribes and entreaties the good Duke Charles dissuaded the English from attacking his duchy. From 1424 until 1426 the citizens of Orleans purchased peace by money payments.[470] The Godons, not being in a position to take the field, were all the more ready to enter into such agreements. During the minority of their half English and half French King, the Duke of Gloucester, the brother and deputy of the Regent, and his uncle, the Bishop of Winchester, Chancellor of the Kingdom, were tearing out each other's hair, and their disputes were the occasion of bloodshed in the London streets.[471] Towards the end of the year 1425 the Regent returned to England, where he spent seventeen months reconciling uncle and nephew and restoring public peace. By dint of craft and vigour he succeeded so far as to render his fellow countrymen desirous and hopeful of completing the conquest of France. With that object, in 1428, the English Parliament voted subsidies.[472]

[Footnote 467: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 190. Alain Chartier, L'esperance ou consolation des trois vertus, in Oeuvres, p. 271. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 14.]

[Footnote 468: Mistere du siege, line 497.]

[Footnote 469: Perceval de Cagny, pp. 21, 22.]

[Footnote 470: Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 255. Chronique de l'etablissement de la fete in the Trial, vol. v, p. 286. Le Maire, Histoire et antiquites de la ville et duche d'Orleans, Orleans, 1645, in 4to, pp. 129 et seq. Lottin, Recherches historiques sur la ville d'Orleans, Orleans, 1836-1845 (7 vols. in 8vo), vol. i, p. 197.]

[Footnote 471: Joseph Stevenson, Letters and Papers, Introduction, vol. i, p. xlvii. De Beaucourt, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 17.]

[Footnote 472: Rymer, Foedera, vol. iv, part iv, p. 135. Mademoiselle A. de Villaret, Campagne des Anglais dans l'Orleanais, la Beauce chartraine et le Gatinais (1421-1428), Orleans, 1893, in 8vo, original documents, p. 134. Stevenson, Letters and Papers, vol. i, pp. 403 et seq.]



Now the most cunning, the most expert, the most fortunate in arms of all the English captains and princes was Thomas Montacute, Earl of Salisbury and of Perche.[473] He had long waged war in Normandy, in Champagne, and in Maine. At present he was gathering an army in England, intended for the banks of the Loire. He got as many bowmen as he wanted; but of horse and men-at-arms he was disappointed. Only those of low estate were willing to go and fight in a land ravaged by famine.[474] At length the noble earl, the fair cousin of King Henry, crossed the sea with four hundred and forty-nine men-at-arms and two thousand two hundred and fifty archers.[475] In France he found troops recruited by the Regent, four hundred horse of whom two hundred were Norman, with three bowmen to each horseman, according to the English custom.[476] He led his men to Paris where irrevocable resolutions were taken.[477] Hitherto the plan had been to attack Angers; at the last moment it was decided to lay siege to Orleans.[478]

[Footnote 473: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 300.]

[Footnote 474: L. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise au siege d'Orleans, 1428-1429, Orleans, 1892, in 8vo, pp. 59 et seq.]

[Footnote 475: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 293. Rymer, Foedera, vol. iv, part iv, pp. 132, 135, 138.]

[Footnote 476: L. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, pp. 26, 27.]

[Footnote 477: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 294. Stevenson, Letters and Papers, p. lxii.]

[Footnote 478: Boucher de Molandon and A. de Beaucorps, L'armee anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc sous les murs d'Orleans, Orleans, 1892, in 8vo, p. 61. L. Jarry, loc. cit.]

Between la Beauce and la Sologne, at the entrance to the loyal provinces Touraine, Blesois, and Berry, the ducal city confronted the enemy, lying on a bend of the Loire, just as the arrow's point is lodged on the taut bow.[479] Bishopric, university, market of the country far and wide, on its belfries, towers, and steeples it raised proudly towards heaven the cross of Our Lord, the three coeurs de lis of the city and the three fleurs de lis of the dukes. Beneath the high slate roofs of its houses of stone or wood, built along winding streets or dark alleys, Orleans sheltered fifteen thousand souls. There were to be found officers of justice and of the treasury, goldsmiths, druggists, grocers, tanners, butchers, fishmongers, rich citizens as delicate as amber, who loved fine clothes, fine houses, music and dancing; priests, canons, wardens, and fellows of the university; booksellers, scriveners, illuminators, painters, scholars who were not all founts of learning, but who played prettily on the flute; monks of every habit, Black-friars, Grey-friars, Mathurins, Carmelites, Augustinians, and artisans and labourers to boot, smiths, coopers, carpenters, boatmen, fishermen.[480]

[Footnote 479: Le Maire, Antiquites, p. 29.]

[Footnote 480: Astesan in Paris et ses historiens, by Le Roux de Lincy and Tisserand, pp. 528 et seq. Le Maire, Antiquites, ch. xix, pp. 75 et seq. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege d'Orleans, in 18mo, pp. 22, 24. E. Fournier, Le Conteur orleanais, p. 111. C. Cuissard, Etude sur la musique dans l'Orleanais, Orleans, 1886, p. 50. Jodocius Sincere, Itirerarium Galliae, Amstelodami, 1655, pp. 24, 25. Paul Charpentier et Cuissard, Histoire du siege d'Orleans, memoire inedite de M. l'Abbe Dubois, Orleans, 1894, in 8vo, p. 129. De Buzonniere, Histoire architecturale de la ville d'Orleans, 1849 (2 vols. in 8vo), vol. i, p. 76.]

Of Roman origin, the form of the town was still the same as in the days of the Emperor Aurelian. The southern side along the Loire and the northern side extended to some three thousand feet. The eastern and western boundaries were only one hundred and fifty feet long. The city was surrounded by walls six feet thick and from eighteen to thirty-three feet high above the moat. These walls were flanked by thirty-four towers, pierced with five gates and two posterns.[481] The following is the description of the situation of these gates, posterns, and towers, with the names of those which became famous during the siege.

[Footnote 481: Jollois, Histoire du siege d'Orleans, Paris, 1833, in 4to, with plans. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, pp. 183 et seq.]

Passing from the south east to the south west angle of the wall, were: La Tour Neuve, round and huge, washed by the Loire; three other towers on the river bank; the postern Chesneau, the only one opening on to the water and defended by a portcullis; the tower of La Croiche-Meuffroy, so called from the crook or spur which protruded from the foot of the tower into the river; two other towers washed by the Loire; La Port du Pont, with drawbridge and flanked by two towers; La Tour de l'Abreuvoir; la Tour de Notre-Dame, deriving its name from a chapel built against the city walls; la Tour de la Barre-Flambert, the last on this side, at the south west angle of the ramparts and commanding the river. All along the Loire the walls had a stone parapet with machicolated battlements, whence pavingstones could be thrown, and whence, when attempts were made to scale the walls, the enemy's ladders could be hurled down. The distance between the towers was about a bow-shot.

On the western side were first three towers, then two gate towers called Regnard or Renard from the name of citizens to whom had once belonged the adjoining palace, where in 1428 dwelt Jacques Boucher, Treasurer of the Duke of Orleans. Then came another tower and lastly La Porte Bernier or Bannier, at the north west angle of the ramparts. On this side the walls had been constructed in the days of the cross-bow, which shot a greater distance than the bow. The towers here, therefore, were farther apart at the distance of a cross-bow shot one from the other, and the walls were lower than elsewhere. On the northern side, looking towards the forest, were ten towers at a bow-shot's interval. The second, that of Saint-Samson, was used as an arsenal. The sixth and seventh flanked the Paris Gate.

On the eastern side were likewise ten towers at the same distance one from the other as those on the north. The fifth and sixth were those of the Burgundian Gate, also called the Gate of Saint-Aignan, because it was close to the church of Saint-Aignan without the walls; the last was the great corner tower, called La Tour Neuve, which thus comes to have been twice counted.

The stone bridge lined with houses which led from the town to the left bank of the Loire was famous all over the world. It had nineteen arches of varying breadth. The first, on leaving the town by La Porte du Pont, was called l'Allouee or Pont Jacquemin-Rousselet; here was a drawbridge. The fifth arch abutted on an island which was long, narrow, and in the form of a boat, like all river islands. Above the bridge it was called Motte-Saint-Antoine, from a chapel built upon it dedicated to that saint; and below, Motte-des-Poissonniers, because in order to keep captured fish alive boats with holes in them were moored to it. In 1447, to provide against the occupation of this island by the enemy, the people of Orleans had constructed a tower, the tower or fortress of Saint-Antoine, beyond the sixth arch and occupying the whole breadth of the bridge. On the buttress between the eleventh and twelfth arch was a cross of gilded bronze, supported by a pedestal of stone. It was indeed what it was called, the Cross Beautiful,—La Belle-Croix. The buttresses of the eighteenth arch were extended, and on the abutment there rose a little castle formed of two towers joined by a vaulted porch. This little castle was called Les Tourelles. Between the nineteenth and the twentieth arch as in the first was a drawbridge. Outside it was Le Portereau; and thence ran the road to Toulouse, which beyond the Loiret on the heights of Olivet joined the road to Blois.[482]

[Footnote 482: Jollois, Lettre a Messieurs les membres de la Societe des Antiquaires de France, sur l'emplacement du fort des Tourelles de l'ancien pont d'Orleans, Paris, 1834, in folio with illustrations. Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, dissertation, v. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, pp. 15-18. Vergniaud Romagnesi, Des differentes enceintes de la ville d'Orleans, pp. 17-19. A. Collin, Le Pont des Tourelles a Orleans, Orleans, 1895, in 8vo. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 13, note 2.]

In those days the lazy waters of the Loire flowed midst osier-beds and birchen thickets, since removed for purposes of navigation. Two and a half miles east of Orleans, on the height of Checy, l'Ile aux Bourdons was separated from the Sologne bank by a thin arm of the river and by a narrow channel from l'Ile Charlemagne and l'Ile-aux-Boeufs, with their green grass and underwood facing Combleux on the La Beauce bank. A boat dropping down the river would next come to the two islands Saint-Loup, and, doubling La Tour Neuve, would glide between the two Martinet Islets on the right and l'Ile-aux-Toiles on the left. Thence it would pass under the bridge which overspanned, as we have seen, an island called above bridge Motte-Saint-Antoine and below, Motte-des-Poissonniers. At length, below the ramparts, opposite Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils, it would come to two islets Biche-d'Orge and another, the name of which is unknown, possibly it was nameless.[483]

[Footnote 483: For some unknown reason modern historians have named the little island to the right of Saint-Laurent l'Ile Charlemagne, which causes it to be confused with the Ile Charlemagne lying to the East of l'Ile-aux-Boeufs. On the accompanying plan we indicate the little island just below Biche-d'Orge by the name of Petite Ile Charlemagne. Jollois, Histoire du siege, engraving 1. Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, pp. 193, 199. Boucher de Molandon, Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc, p. 16. Manuscript of M. A. Cagnieul, librarian at Orleans.]

The suburbs of Orleans were the finest in the kingdom. On the south the fishermen's suburb of Le Portereau, with its Augustinian church and monastery, extended along the river at the foot of the vineyards of Saint-Jean-le-Blanc, which produced the best wine in the country.[484] Above, on the gentle slopes ascending to the bleak plateau of Sologne, the Loiret, with its torrential springs, its limpid waters, its shady banks, the gardens and the brooks of Olivet, smiled beneath a mild and showery sky.

[Footnote 484: Symphorien Guyon, Histoire de l'eglise et diocese d'Orleans, Orleans, 1647, vol. i, preface. Le Maire, Antiquites, p. 36.]

The faubourg of the Burgundian gate stretching eastwards was the best built and the most populous. There were the wonderful churches of Saint-Michel and of Saint-Aignan. The cloister of the latter was held to be marvellous.[485] Leaving this suburb and passing by the vineyards along the sandy branch of the Loire extending between the bank of the river and l'Ile-aux-Boeufs about a quarter of a league further on, one comes to the steep slope of Saint-Loup; and, advancing still further towards the east, the belfries of Saint-Jean-de-Bray, Combleux and Checy may be seen rising one beyond the other between the river and the Roman road from Autun to Paris. On the north of the city were fine monasteries and beautiful churches, the chapel of Saint-Ladre, in the cemetery; the Jacobins, the Cordeliers, the church of Saint-Pierre-Ensentelee. Directly north, the faubourg of La Porte Bernier lay along the Paris road, and close by there stretched the sombre city of the wolves, the deep forest of oaks, horn-beams, beeches, and willows, wherein were hidden, like wood-cutters and charcoal-burners, the villages of Fleury and Samoy.[486]

[Footnote 485: Journal du siege, pp. 13, 15. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 270. Hubert, Antiquites historiques de l'eglise royale d'Orleans, Orleans, 1661, in 8vo. Le Maire, Antiquites, p. 284. Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, pp. 133, 205, 277, passim. Jollois, Histoire du siege, p. 21. H. Baraude, Le siege d'Orleans et Jeanne d'Arc, Paris, 1906, pp. 10 et seq.]

[Footnote 486: Le Maire, Antiquites, p. 43.]

Towards the west the faubourg of La Porte Renard stretched out into the fields along the road to Chateaudun, and the hamlet of Saint-Laurent along the road to Blois.[487]

[Footnote 487: Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, p. 296. Boucher de Molandon, Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc, le ravitaillement d'Orleans, nouveaux documents, Orleans, 1874, in large 8vo, with topographical plan: Orleans, la Loire et ses iles en 1429.]

These faubourgs were so populous and so extensive that when, on the approach of the English, the people from the suburbs took refuge within the city the number of its inhabitants was doubled.[488]

[Footnote 488: Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, pp. 391, 399. Jollois, Histoire du siege, pp. 41, 44. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege, Orleans, 1867, in 8vo, p. 24. Lottin, Recherches sur Orleans, vol. i, p. 141.]

The inhabitants of Orleans were resolved to fight, not for their honour indeed; in those days no honour redounded to a citizen from the defence of his own city; his only reward was the risk of terrible danger. When the town was captured the great and wealthy had but to pay ransom and the conqueror entertained them well; the lesser and poorer nobility ran greater risks. In this year, 1428, the knights, who defended Melun and surrendered after having eaten their horses and their dogs, were drowned in the Seine. "Nobility was worth nothing," ran a Burgundian song.[489]

[Footnote 489: Le Roux de Lincy, Chants historiques et populaires du temps de Charles VII, Paris, 1862, in 18mo, p. 28.]

But generally being of noble birth saved one's life. As for those burghers brave enough to defend themselves, they were likely to perish. There were no fixed rules with regard to them; sometimes several were hanged; sometimes only one, sometimes all. It was also lawful to cut off their heads or to throw them into the water, sewn in a sack. In that same year, 1428, Captains La Hire and Poton had failed in their assault on Le Mans and decamped just in time. The citizens who had aided them were beheaded in the square du Cloitre-Saint-Julien, on the Olet stone, by order of William Pole, Earl of Suffolk, who had already arrived at Olivet, and of John Talbot, the most courteous of English knights, who was shortly to come there too.[490] Such an example was sufficient to warn the people of Orleans.

[Footnote 490: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, pp. 225, 226. Geste des nobles, p. 202. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 251. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 59. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, pp. 107, 112.]

Notwithstanding that it was under the control of the Governor, the town administered its own affairs by means of twelve magistrates elected for two years by the citizens, subject to the governor's approbation.[491] These magistrates risked more than the other citizens. One of them, as he passed the monastery of Saint-Sulpice, where was the place of execution, might well reflect that before the year was out he might have justice executed on him there for having defended his lord's inheritance. Yet the twelve were resolved to defend this inheritance; and they acted for the common weal with promptness and with wisdom.

[Footnote 491: Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, pp. 164, 171. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege, p. 25.]

The people of Orleans were not taken by surprise. Their fathers had watched the English closely, and put their city in a state of defence. They themselves, in the year 1425, had so firmly expected a siege that they had collected arms in the Tower of Saint-Samson, while all, rich and poor alike, had been required to dig dykes and build ramparts.[492] War has always been costly. They devoted three quarters of the yearly revenue of the town to keeping up the ramparts and other preparations for war. Hearing of the approach of the Earl of Salisbury, with marvellous energy they prepared to receive him.

[Footnote 492: The Monk of Dunfermline, in Trial, vol. v, p. 341. Le Maire, Antiquites, pp. 283 et seq. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, pp. 160, 161.]

The walls, except those along the river, were devoid of breastwork; but in the shops were stakes and cross-beams intended for the manufacture of balustrades. These were put up on the fortifications to form parapets, with barbicans of a pent-house shape so as to provide with cover the defenders firing from the walls.[493] At the entrance to each suburb wooden barriers were erected, with a lodge for the porter whose duty it was to open and shut them. On the tops of the ramparts and in the towers were seventy-one pieces of artillery, including cannons and mortars, without counting culverins. The quarry of Montmaillard, three leagues from the town, produced stones which were made into cannon balls. At great expense there were brought into the city lead, powder, and sulphur which the women prepared for use in the cannons and culverins. Every day there were manufactured in thousands, arrows, darts, stacks of bolts,[494] armed with iron points and feathered with parchment, numbers of pavas, great shields made of pieces of wood mortised one into the other and covered with leather. Corn, wine, and cattle were purchased in great quantities both for the inhabitants and the men-at-arms, the King's men, and adventurers who were expected.[495]

[Footnote 493: Jollois, Histoire du siege, p. 6. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, pp. 202-205.]

[Footnote 494: An arrow shot from the long-bow, the feathers of the arrow were spirally arranged to produce a spinning movement in its flight (W.S.).]

[Footnote 495: The accounts of the fortresses, in Journal du siege, pp. 301 et seq. Jollois, Histoire du siege, p. 12. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege, pp. 15-17. Loiseleur, Comptes des depenses faites par Charles VII pour secourir Orleans pendant le siege de 1428, Orleans, 1868, in 8vo, p. 113. Boucher de Molandon et de Beaucorps, L'armee anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc, p. 81.]

By a jealously guarded privilege the inhabitants had the right of defending the ramparts. According to their trades they were divided into as many companies as there were towers. Thus defending themselves they had the right to refuse to admit any garrison within the walls. They held to this right because it delivered them from the pillage, the rapine, the burnings and constant molestations inflicted by the King's men. But now they were eager to renounce it; for they realised that alone with only the town bands and those from the neighbouring villages, mere peasants, they could not sustain the siege; to resist the enemy they must have horsemen, skilled in wielding the lance, and foot, skilled in the use of the cross-bow. While their Governor the Sire de Gaucourt and my Lord, the Bastard of Orleans, the King's Lieutenant General, went to Chinon and Poitiers to obtain supplies of men and money[496] from the King, the citizens in commissions of two and two went forth asking help of the towns, travelling as far as Bourbonnais and Languedoc.[497] The magistrates appealed to those soldiers of fortune who held the neighbouring country for the King of France. By the mouths of the two heralds of the city, Orleans and Coeur-de-Lis, they proclaimed that within the city walls were gold and silver in abundance and such good provision of victuals and arms as would nourish and accoutre two thousand combatants for two years, and that every gentle, honest knight who would might share in the defence of the city and wage battle to the death.[498]

[Footnote 496: Accounts of Hemon Raguier, Bibl. Nat. Fr. 7858, fol. 41. Loiseleur, Comptes des depenses, p. 65. Pallet, Nouvelle histoire du Berry, vol. iii, pp. 78-80. Vallet de Viriville, in Bulletin de la Societe d'histoire de France. Cabinet historique, vol. v, part ii, p. 107. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege, p. 15.]

[Footnote 497: A. Thomas, Le siege d'Orleans, Jeanne d'Arc et les capitouls de Toulouse, in Annales du Midi, April, 1889, p. 232. M. Boudet, Villandrando et les ecorcheurs a Saint-Flour, pp. 18, 19. A. de Villaret, Campagne des Anglais, p. 61.]

[Footnote 498: The monk of Dunfermline in the Trial, vol. v, p. 341.]

The inhabitants of Orleans feared God. In those days God was greatly to be feared; he was almost as terrible as in the days of the Philistines. The poor fisher folk were afraid of being repulsed if they addressed him in their affliction; they thought it better to take a roundabout road and to seek the intercession of Our Lady and the saints. God respected his Mother and sought to please her on every occasion. Likewise he deferred to the wishes of the Blessed, seated on his right hand and on his left in Paradise, and he inclined his ear to listen to the petitions they presented to him. Thus in cases of dire necessity it was customary to solicit the favour of the saints by presenting prayers and offerings. Then also did the citizens of Orleans remember Saint Euverte and Saint-Aignan, the patrons of their town. In very ancient days Saint Euverte had sat upon that episcopal seat, now, in 1428, occupied by a Scot. Messire Jean de Saint Michel, and Saint Euverte had shone with all the glory of apostolic virtue.[499] His successor, Saint-Aignan had prayed to God. He had regarded the city in a peril like unto that of which it was now in danger.

[Footnote 499: Journal du siege, p. 51. Chronique de la fete in the Trial, vol. v, p. 296. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, pp. 27-31.]

The following is his story as it was known to the people of Orleans. When still young, Saint-Aignan had withdrawn to a solitary place near Orleans. There Saint Euverte, at that time bishop of the city, discovered him. He ordained him priest, appointed him Abbot of Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils, and elected him to succeed him in the government of the faithful. And when Saint Euverte had passed from this life to the other, the blessed Aignan, with the consent of the people of Orleans, was proclaimed bishop by the voice of a little child. For God, who is praised out of the mouths of babes, permitted one of them, borne in his swaddling clothes to the altar, to speak and say: "Aignan, Aignan is chosen of God to be bishop of this town." Now in the sixtieth year of his pontificate, the Huns invaded Gaul, led by their King Attila, who boasted that wherever he went the stars fell and the earth trembled beneath him, that he was the hammer of the world, stellas pre se cadere, terram tremere, se malleum esse universi orbis. Every town on his march had been destroyed by him, and now he was advancing against Orleans. Then the blessed Aignan went forth into the city of Arles, to the Patrician Aetius, who commanded the Roman army, and implored his aid in so great a peril. Having obtained of the Patrician promise of succour, Aignan returned to his episcopal see, which he found surrounded by barbarian warriors. The Huns, having made breaches in the walls, were preparing an assault. The blessed saint went up on to the ramparts, knelt and prayed, and then, having prayed, spat upon the enemy. By God's will that drop of his saliva was followed by all the raindrops in the sky. A tempest arose: the rain fell in such torrents on the barbarians that their camp was flooded; their tents were overturned by the power of the winds, and many among them perished by lightning. The rain lasted for three days, after which time Attila assailed the ramparts with powerful engines of war. When they saw the walls fall down the inhabitants were terrified. All hope of resistance being at an end, the holy bishop, clad in his episcopal robes, went to the King of the Huns and adjured him to take pity on the people of Orleans, threatening him with the wrath of God if he dealt hardly with the conquered. These prayers and these threats did not soften Attila's heart. On his return to the faithful, the bishop warned them that henceforth nothing remained to them but trust in God; divine succour, however, would not fail them. And soon, according to the promise he had given them, God delivered the town by means of the Romans and the Franks, who defied the Huns in a great battle. Not long after the miraculous deliverance of his beloved city, Saint Aignan fell asleep in the Lord.[500]

[Footnote 500: Hubert, Antiquitez historiques de l'eglise royale de Saint-Aignan d'Orleans, 1661, in 8vo, pp. 1-15.]

Wherefore, in this great peril of the English, the citizens of Orleans resorted to Saint Euverte and Saint-Aignan for succour and relief. According to the marvels accomplished by Saint-Aignan in this mortal life they measured his power of working miracles now that he was in Paradise. These two confessors had each his church in the faubourg de Bourgogne, wherein their bodies were jealously guarded.[501] In those days the bones of martyrs and confessors were devoutly worshipped. It was said that sometimes they shed abroad a healing odour which represented the virtues proceeding from them. They were enclosed in gilded reliquaries adorned with precious stones, and no miracle was thought too great to be accomplished by these holy relics. On the 6th of August, 1428, the clergy of the city went to the church wherein was the reliquary of Saint Euverte and bore it round the walls, that they might be strengthened. And the holy reliquary made the round of the whole city, followed by all the people. On the 8th of September a tortis weighing one hundred and ten livres[502] was offered to Saint-Aignan. In time of need the favour of the saints was solicited by all kinds of gifts, garments, jewels, coins, houses, lands, woods, ponds; but natural wax was thought to be especially grateful to them. A tortis was a wheel of wax on which candles were placed and two escutcheons bearing the arms of the city.[503]

[Footnote 501: Trial, vol. iii, p. 32. Journal du siege, p. 14. Hubert, loc. cit., chs. iii, iv. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, pp. 82, 83.]

[Footnote 502: A livre varied in weight from province to province; generally it was about seventeen ounces (W.S.).]

[Footnote 503: Le Maire, Antiquites, p. 285. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege, p. 16.]

Thus did the people of Orleans strive to provision and protect their town.

Adventurers from all parts responded to the magistrates' appeal. The first to hasten to the city were: Messire Archambaud de Villars, Governor of Montargis; Guillaume de Chaumont, Lord of Guitry; Messire Pierre de la Chapelle, a baron of La Beauce; Raimond Arnaud de Corraze, knight of Bearn; Don Matthias of Aragon; Jean de Saintrailles and Poton de Saintrailles. The Abbot of Cerquenceaux, sometime student at the University of Orleans, arrived at the head of a band of followers.[504] Thus the number of friends who entered the city was well-nigh as great as that of the expected foe. The defenders were paid; they were furnished with bread, meat, fish, forage in plenty, and casks of wine were broached for them. In the beginning the inhabitants treated them like their own children. The citizens all contributed to the entertainment of the strangers, and gave them what they had. But this concord did not long endure. Whatever tradition alleges as to the friendly relations subsisting between the citizens and their military guests,[505] affairs in Orleans were in truth not different from what they were in other besieged towns; before long the inhabitants began to complain of the garrison.

[Footnote 504: Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 257, 258. Journal du siege, pp. 6, 7. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, p. 204. J. Devaux, Le Gatinais au temps de Jeanne d'Arc, in Ann. Soc. hist. et arch. du Gatinais, vol. v, 1887, p. 220.]

[Footnote 505: Journal du siege, p. 92.]

On the 5th of September the Earl of Salisbury reached Janville, having taken with ease towns, fortified churches or castles to the number of forty. But that was not his greatest achievement; for, although he had left but few men in each place, he had by that means rid himself on the march of that portion of his army which had already shown itself ready to drop away.[506]

[Footnote 506: Geste des Nobles, p. 204. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 256. Letter from Salisbury to the Commons of London, in Delpit, Collection de documents francais qui se trouvent en Angleterre, pp. 236, 237. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, pp. 79-89.]

From Janville he sent two heralds to Orleans to summon the inhabitants to surrender. The magistrates lodged these heralds honourably in the faubourg Bannier, at the Hotel de la Pomme and confided to them a present of wine for the Earl of Salisbury; they knew their duty to so great a prince. But they refused to open their gates to the English garrison, alleging, doubtless, as was the custom of citizens in those days, that they were not able to open them, having those within who were stronger than they.[507]

[Footnote 507: Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, p. 11. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, p. 82. Boucher de Molandon, Les comptes de ville d'Orleans des quatorzieme et quinzieme siecles, Orleans, 1880, in 8vo, pp. 91 et seq.]

Now that the danger was drawing near, on the 6th of October, priests, burgesses, notables, merchants, mechanics, women and children walked in solemn procession with crosses and banners, singing psalms and invoking the heavenly guardians of the city.[508]

[Footnote 508: Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, p. 205. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege, p. 17.]

On Tuesday, the 12th of this month, at the news that the enemy was coming through Sologne, the magistrates sent soldiers to pull down the houses of Le Portereau, the suburb on the left bank, also the Augustinian church and monastery of that suburb, as well as all other buildings in which the enemy might lodge or entrench himself. But the soldiers were taken by surprise. That very day the English occupied Olivet and appeared in Le Portereau.[509] With them were the victors of Verneuil, the flower of English knighthood: Thomas, Lord of Scales and of Nucelles, Governor of Pontorson, whom the King of England called cousin; William Neville; Baron Falconbridge; William Gethyn, a Welsh knight, Bailie of Evreux; Lord Richard Gray, nephew of the Earl of Salisbury; Gilbert Halsall, Richard Panyngel, Thomas Guerard, knights, and many others of great renown.

[Footnote 509: Journal du siege, p. 4.]

Over the two hundred lances from Normandy there floated the standards of William Pole, Earl of Suffolk, and of John Pole, two brothers descended from a comrade-in-arms of Duke William; of Thomas Rampston, knight banneret, the Regent's chamberlain; of Richard Walter, squire, Governor of Conches, Bailie and Captain of Evreux; of William Mollins, knight; of William Glasdale, whom the French called Glacidas, squire, Bailie of Alencon, a man of humble birth.[510]

[Footnote 510: Journal du siege, pp. 2-4. Boucher de Molandon et de Beaucorps, L'armee anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc, p. 129.]

The archers were all on horseback. There were practically no foot-soldiers. In carts drawn by oxen were barrels of powder, cross-bows, arrows, cannon-balls, and guns of all kinds, muskets, fowling-pieces, and large cannon. The two English master-gunners, Philibert de Moslant and William Appleby, accompanied the troops. There were also two masters of mining with thirty-eight workmen. Of women there were not a few, some of them acting as spies.[511]

[Footnote 511: L. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, pp. 26, 28, 29. Boucher de Molandon and de Beaucorps, L'armee anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 50 et seq. Mademoiselle A. de Villaret, Campagne des anglais, ch. iv, pp. 39, 53; Accounts of the siege, nos. 30, 31, p. 214. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, p. 205.]

When the army arrived it was greatly diminished by desertions, having shed runaways at each victory. Some returned to England, others roamed through the realm of France robbing and plundering. That very 12th of October orders had been despatched from Rouen to the Bailies and Governors of Normandy to arrest those English who had departed from the company of my Lord, the Earl of Salisbury.[512]

[Footnote 512: L. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, p. 61.]

The fort of Les Tourelles and its outworks barred the entrance to the bridge. The English established themselves in Le Portereau, placed their cannon and their mortars on the rising ground of Saint-Jean-le-Blanc,[513] and, on the following Sunday, they hurled down upon the city a shower of stone cannon-balls, which did great damage to the houses, but killed no one save a woman of Orleans, named Belles, who dwelt near the Chesneau postern on the river bank. Thus the siege, which was to be ended by a woman's victory, began with a woman's death.

[Footnote 513: Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 258. Jean Chartier, Chronique, p. 66. Jean Raoulet in Chartier, Chronique, vol. iii, p. 198. Journal du siege, pp. 1, 2. Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, p. 246. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege, p. 27. H. Baraude, Le siege d'Orleans et Jeanne d'Arc, p. 31.]

That same week the English cannon destroyed twelve water mills near La Tour Neuve. Whereupon the people of Orleans constructed within the city eleven mills worked by horses,[514] in order that there might be no lack of flour. There were a few skirmishes at the bridge. Then on Thursday, the 21st of October, the English attempted to storm the outworks of Les Tourelles. The little band of adventurers in the service of the town and the city troops made a gallant defence. The women helped; throughout the four hours that the assault lasted long lines of gossips might be seen hurrying to the bridge, bearing their pots and pans filled with burning coals and boiling oil and fat, frantic with joy at the idea of scalding the Godons.[515] The attack was repulsed; but two days later the French perceived that the outworks were undermined; the English had dug subterranean passages, to the props of which they had afterwards set fire. The outworks having become untenable in the opinion of the soldiers, they were destroyed and abandoned. It was deemed impossible to defend Les Tourelles thus dismantled. Those towers which would once have arrested an army's progress for a whole month were now useless against cannon. In front of La Belle Croix the townsfolk erected a rampart of earth and wood. Beyond this outwork two arches of the bridge were cut and replaced by a movable platform. And when this was done, the fort of Les Tourelles was abandoned to the English with no great regret. The latter set up a rampart of earth and faggots on the bridge, breaking two of its arches, one in front, the other behind their earthwork.[516]

[Footnote 514: Journal du siege, p. 4.]

[Footnote 515: Ibid., pp. 7-8. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, pp. 208, 210.]

[Footnote 516: Journal du siege, pp. 5-8.]

On the Sunday, towards evening, a few hours after the flag of St. George had been planted on the fort, the Earl of Salisbury, with William Glasdale and several captains, went up one of the towers to observe the lie of the city. Looking from a window he beheld the walls armed with cannon; the towers vanishing into pinnacles or with terraces on their flat roofs; the battlements dry and grey; the suburbs adorned for a few days longer with the fine stone-work of their churches and monasteries; the vineyards and the woods yellow with autumn tints; the Loire and its oval-shaped islands,—all slumbering in the evening calm. He was looking for the weak point in the ramparts, the place where he might make a breach and put up his scaling ladders. For his plan was to take Orleans by assault. William Glasdale said to him, "My Lord, look well at your city. You have a good bird's-eye view of it from here."

At this moment a cannon-ball breaks off a corner of the window recess, a stone from the wall strikes Salisbury, carrying away one eye and one side of his face. The shot had been fired from La Tour Notre-Dame. That at least was generally believed. It was never known who had fired it. A townsman, alarmed by the noise, hastened to the spot, saw a child coming out of the tower and the cannon deserted. It was thought that the hand of an innocent child had fired the bullet by the permission of the Mother of God, who had been irritated by the Earl of Salisbury's despoiling monks and pillaging the Church of Notre Dame de Clery. It was said also that he was punished for having broken his oath, for he had promised the Duke of Orleans to respect his lands and his towns. Borne secretly to Meung-sur-Loire, he died there on Wednesday the 27th of October; and the English were very sorrowful.[517] Most of them felt that loss to be irreparable which had deprived them of a chief who was conducting the siege vigorously, and who in less than twelve days had captured Les Tourelles, the very corner-stone of the city's defence. But there were others who reflected that he must have been very simple to imagine that thick ramparts could be overthrown by stone balls, the force of which had already been spent in crossing the wide stretches of the river, and that he must have been mad to attempt to storm a city which could only be reduced by famine. Then they thought: "He is dead. God receive his soul! But he has brought us into a sorry plight."

[Footnote 517: Journal du siege, pp. 10, 12. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 264. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 298. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 63. Mistere d'Orleans, line 3104 et seq. Chronique de la fete in Trial, vol. v, p. 288. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 131. Lorenzo Buonincontro in Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, vol. xxi, col. 136. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, pp. 85, 86.]

Men told how Maitre Jean de Builhons, a famous astrologer, had prophesied this death,[518] and how in the night before the fatal day, the Earl of Salisbury himself had dreamed that he was being clawed by a wolf. A Norman clerk composed two songs on this sad death, one against the English, the other for them. The first, which is the better, closes with a couplet, worthy in its profound wisdom of King Solomon himself:[519]

Certes le duc de Bedefort Se sage est, il se tendra Avec sa femme en ung fort, Chaudement le mieulx[520] que il porra, De bon ypocras finera, Garde son corps, lesse la guerre: Povre et riche porrist en terre.[521]

[Footnote 518: Trial, vol. iv, p. 345. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 263. Journal du siege, p. 10. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 32.]

[Footnote 519: L. Jarry, Deux chansons normandes, Orleans, 1894, in 8vo, p. 11.]

[Footnote 520: The text published by M. Jarry has mielux.]

[Footnote 521: Certes that wise man the Duke of Bedford, will keep himself in a fortress with his wife as snug as may be. He will drink good hypocras (a kind of wine). He looks after himself, leaves warfare and the poor and rich to rot in the ground.]

The day after the taking of Les Tourelles and when its loss had been remedied as best might be, the King's lieutenant-general entered the town. He was le Seigneur Jean, Count of Porcien and of Montaing, Grand Chamberlain of France, son of Duke Louis of Orleans, who had been assassinated in 1407 by order of Jean-Sans-Peur, and whose death had armed the Armagnacs against the Burgundians. Dame de Cany was his mother, but he ought to have been the son of the Duchess of Orleans since the Duke was his father. Not only was it no drawback to children to be born outside wedlock and of an adulterous union, but it was a great honor to be called the bastard of a prince. There have never been so many bastards as during these wars, and the saying ran: "Children are like corn: sow stolen wheat and it will sprout as well as any other."[522] The Bastard of Orleans was then twenty-six at the most. The year before, with a small company, he had hastened to revictual the inhabitants of Montargis, who were besieged by the Earl of Warwick. He had not only revictualled the town; but with the help of Captain La Hire had driven away the besiegers. This augured well for Orleans.[523] The Bastard was the cleverest baron of his day. He knew grammar and astrology, and spoke more correctly than any one.[524] In his affability and intelligence he resembled his father, but he was more cautious and more temperate. His amiability, his courtesy and his discretion caused it to be said that he was in favour with all the ladies, even with the Queen.[525] In everything he was apt, in war as well as in diplomacy, marvellously adroit, and a consummate dissembler.

[Footnote 522: Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. i, p. 25; vol. ii, p. 389.]

[Footnote 523: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 273, 274. Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 243, 247. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 54. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 221. Cronique Martiniane, p. 7.]

[Footnote 524: Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. ii, p. 105.]

[Footnote 525: Mathieu d'Escouchy, Chronique, ed. Beaucourt, Paris, 1863, vol. i, p. 186. De Beaucourt, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. ii, p. 236.]

My Lord the Bastard brought in his train several knights, captains, and squires of renown, that is to say, of high birth or of great valour: the Marshal de Boussac, Messire Jacques de Chabannes, Seneschal of Bourbonnais, the Lord of Chaumont, Messire Theaulde of Valpergue, a Lombard knight, Captain La Hire, wondrous in war and in pillage, who had lately done so well in the relief of Montargis, and Jean, Sire de Bueil, one of those youths who had come to the King on a lame horse and who had taken lessons from two wise women, Suffering and Poverty. These knights came with a company of eight hundred men, archers, arbalesters, and Italian foot, bearing broad shields like those of St. George in the churches of Venice and Florence. They represented all the nobles and free-lances who for the moment could be gathered together.[526]

[Footnote 526: Journal du siege, pp. 10, 12. Cronique Martiniane, p. 8. Le jouvencel, p. 277. Loiseleur, Comptes des depenses, pp. 90, 91.]

After the death of its chief, Salisbury's army was paralysed by disunion and diminished by desertions. Winter was coming: the captains, seeing there was nothing to be done for the present, broke up their camp, and, with such men as remained to them, went off to shelter behind the walls of Meung and Jargeau.[527] On the evening of the 8th of November all that remained before the city was the garrison of Les Tourelles, consisting of five hundred Norman horse, commanded by William Molyns and William Glasdale. The French might besiege and take them: they would not budge. The Governor, the old Sire de Gaucourt, had just fallen on the pavement in La Rue des Hotelleries and broken his arm; he couldn't move.[528] But what about the rest of the defenders?

[Footnote 527: Journal du siege, pp. 12, 13. Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, p. 245. Boucher de Molandon et de Beaucorps, L'armee anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 92, 111. Jean de Bueil, Le jouvencel, passim.]

[Footnote 528: Journal du siege, p. 7.]

The truth is, no one knew what to do. These warriors were doubtless acquainted with many measures for the succour of a besieged town, but they were all measures of surprise.[529] Their only devices were sallies, ambuscades, skirmishes, and other such valiant feats of arms. Should they fail in raising a siege by surprise, then they remained inactive,—at the end of their ideas and of their resources. Their most experienced captains were incapable of any common effort,—of any concerted action, of any enterprise in short, requiring a continuous mental effort and the subordination of all to one. Each was for his own hand and thought of nothing but booty. The defence of Orleans was altogether beyond their intelligence.

[Footnote 529: Le jouvencel, vol. i, p. 142.]

For twenty-one days Captain Glasdale remained entrenched, with his five hundred Norman horse, under the battered walls of Les Tourelles, between his earthworks on Le Portereau side, which couldn't have become very formidable as yet, and his barrier on the bridge, which being but wood, a spark could easily have set on fire.

Meanwhile the citizens were at work. After the departure of the English they performed a huge and arduous task. Concluding, and rightly, that the enemy would return not through La Sologne this time, but through La Beauce, they destroyed all their suburbs on the west, north, and east, as they had already destroyed or begun to destroy Le Portereau. They burned and pulled down twenty-two churches and monasteries, among others the church of Saint-Aignan and its monastery, so beautiful that it was a pity to see it spoiled, the church of Saint Euverte, the church of Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils, not without promising the blessed patrons of the town that when they should have delivered the city from the English, the citizens would build them new and more beautiful churches.[530]

[Footnote 530: Journal du siege, p. 19. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 270. Jean Chartier, Chronique, vol. i, p. 61. Le P. Denifle, La desolation des eglises de France, petition C.]

On the 30th of November Captain Glasdale beheld Sir John Talbot approaching Les Tourelles. He brought three hundred men furnished with cannon, mortars, and other engines of war. Thenceforward the bombardment was resumed more violently than before: roofs were broken through, walls were battered, but there was more noise than work. In La Rue Aux-Petits-Souliers a cannon-ball fell on to a table, round which five persons were dining, and no one was hurt. It was thought to have been a miracle of Our Lord worked at the intercession of Saint Aignan, the patron saint of the city.[531] The people of Orleans had wherewith to answer the besiegers. For the seventy cannon and mortars, of which the city artillery consisted, there were twelve professional gunners with servants to wait on them. A very clever founder named Guillaume Duisy had cast a mortar which from its position at the crook or spur by the Chesneau postern, hurled stone bullets of one hundred and twenty livres on to Les Tourelles. Near this mortar were two cannon, one called Montargis because the town of Montargis had lent it, the other named Rifflart[532] after a very popular demon. A culverin firer, a Lorrainer living at Angers, had been sent by the King to Orleans, where he was paid twelve livres[533] a month. His name was Jean de Montesclere. He was held to be the best master of his trade. He had in his charge a huge culverin which inflicted great damage on the English.[534]

[Footnote 531: Journal du siege, pp. 16, 17.]

[Footnote 532: Ibid., p. 17. J.L. Micqueau, Histoire du siege d'Orleans par les Anglais, translated by Du Breton, Paris, 1631, p. 27. Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, p. 287. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, pp. 209, 210.]

[Footnote 533: Livre, if it were of Paris, was equivalent to one shilling, if of Tours, to ten pence (W.S.).]

[Footnote 534: Journal du siege, p. 18. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. clxxxv. Loiseleur, Compte des depenses faites par Charles VII pour secourir Orleans, in Mem. Soc. Arch. de l'Orleanais, vol. xi, pp. 114, 186.]

A jovial fellow was Maitre Jean. When a cannon-ball happened to fall near him he would tumble to the ground and be carried into the town to the great joy of the English who believed him dead. But their joy was short-lived, for Maitre Jean soon returned to his post and bombarded them as before.[535] These culverins were loaded with leaden bullets by means of an iron ramrod. They were tiny cannon or rather large guns on gun-carriages. They could be moved easily.[536] And so Maitre Jean's culverin was brought wherever it was needed.

[Footnote 535: Journal du siege, p. 28. Lottin, Recherches, vol. i, p. 214.]

[Footnote 536: Loiseleur, Comptes, p. 114. P. Mantellier, Histoire du siege, p. 33.]

On the 25th of December a truce was proclaimed for the celebration of the Nativity of Our Lord. Of one faith and one religion, on feast days the hostility of the combatants ceased, and courtesy reconciled the knights of the two camps whenever the calendar reminded them that they were Christians. Noel is a gay feast. Captain Glasdale wanted to celebrate it with carol singing according to the English custom. He asked my Lord Jean, the Bastard of Orleans, and Marshal de Boussac to send him a band of musicians, which they graciously did. The Orleans players went forth to Les Tourelles with their clarions and their trumpets; and they played the English such carols as rejoiced their hearts. To the folk of Orleans, who came on to the bridge to listen to the music, it sounded very melodious; but no sooner had the truce expired than every man looked to himself. For from one bank to the other the cannon burst from their slumber, hurling balls of stone and copper with renewed vigour.[537]

[Footnote 537: Journal du siege, pp. 15, 18.]

That which the people of Orleans had foreseen happened on the 30th of December. On that day the English came in great force through La Beauce to Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils.[538] All the French knights went out to meet them and performed great feats of arms; but the English occupied Saint-Laurent, and then the siege really began. They erected a bastion on the left bank of the Loire, west of Le Portereau, in a place called the Field of Saint-Prive. Another they erected in the little island to the right of Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils.[539] On the right bank, at Saint-Laurent, they constructed an entrenched camp. At a bow-shot's distance on the road to Blois, in a place called la Croix-Boissee, they built another bastion. Two bow-shots away, towards the north on the road to Mans, at a spot called Les Douze-Pierres, they raised a fort which they called London.[540]

[Footnote 538: To the number of 2500. Journal du siege, p. 20. Chronique de la Pucelle, p. 265. Abbe Dubois, Histoire du siege, p. 252. Jollois, Histoire du siege, pp. 26, 27.]

[Footnote 539: Cf. ante, p. 112, note 1. On the plan this island is called Petite Ile Charlemagne.]

[Footnote 540: G. Girault's report in the Trial, vol. iv, p. 283. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 16, note 5; vol. iv, supplement xiii.]

By these works half of Orleans was invested, which was as good as saying that it was not invested at all. People went in and out as they pleased. Small relieving companies despatched by the King arrived without let or hindrance. On the 5th of January, 1429, Admiral de Culant with five hundred men-at-arms crosses the Loire opposite Saint-Loup and enters the city by the Burgundian Gate. On the 8th of February there enters William Stuart, brother of the Constable of Scotland, at the head of a thousand combatants well accoutred, and accompanied by several knights and squires. On the morrow they are followed by three hundred and twenty soldiers. Victuals and ammunition are constantly arriving; on the 3rd of January, nine hundred and fifty-four pigs and four hundred sheep; on the 10th, powder and victuals; on the 12th, six hundred pigs; on the 24th, six hundred head of fat cattle and two hundred pigs; on the 31st, eight horses loaded with oil and fat.[541]

[Footnote 541: Journal du siege, pp. 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 34.]

It became evident to Lord Scales, William Pole, and Sir John Talbot, who since Salisbury's[542] death had been conducting the siege, that months and months must elapse ere the investment could be completed and the city surrounded by a ring of forts connected by a moat. Meanwhile the miserable Godons, up to the ears in mud and snow, were freezing in their wretched hovels,—mere shelters of wood and earth. If things went on thus they were in danger of being worse off and more starved than the besieged. Therefore, following the example of the late Earl, from time to time they tried to bring matters to a crisis; without great hope of success they endeavoured to take the town by assault.[543]

[Footnote 542: Boucher de Molandon and A. de Beaucorps, L'armee anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc, pp. 3 et seq. Jarry, Le compte de l'armee anglaise, proofs and illustrations v, p. 233.]

[Footnote 543: Jan. 1, 2. Journal du siege, pp. 21, 22, 30.]

On the side of the Renard Gate the wall was lower than elsewhere; and, as their strongest force lay in this direction, they preferred to attack this part of the ramparts. They stormed the Renard Gate, rushing against the barriers with loud cries of Saint George; but the king's men and the city bands drove them back to their bastions.[544] Each of these ill planned and useless assaults cost them many men. And they already lacked both soldiers and horses.

[Footnote 544: 4-27 Jan. Journal du siege, pp. 21, 22, 30.]

Neither had they succeeded in alarming the people of Orleans by their double bombardment on the south and on the west. There was a joke in the town that a great cannon-ball had fallen near La Porte Banniere into the midst of a crowd of a hundred people without touching one, except a fellow who had his shoe taken off by it, but suffered no further hurt than having to put it on again.[545]

[Footnote 545: 17 Jan. Ibid., p. 26.]

Meanwhile the French, English, and Burgundian knights took delight in performing valiant deeds of prowess. Whenever the whim took them, and under the slightest protest, they sallied forth into the country, but always with the object of capturing some booty, for they thought of little else. One day, for instance, towards the end of January, when it was bitterly cold, a little band of English marauders entered the vineyards of Saint-Ladre and Saint-Jean-de-la-Ruelle to gather sticks for firewood. The watchman no sooner announces them than behold all the banners flying to the wind. Marshal de Boussac, Messire Jacques de Chabannes, Seneschal of Bourbonnais, Messire Denis de Chailly, and many another baron, and with them captains and free-lances, make forth into the fields. Not one of them can have commanded as many as twenty men.[546]

[Footnote 546: Ibid., p. 32.]

The King's council was making every effort to succour Orleans. The King summoned the nobles of Auvergne. They had been true to the Lilies ever since the day when the Dauphin, Canon of Notre-Dame-d'Ancis, and barely more than a child, had travelled over wild peaks to subdue two or three rebellious barons.[547] At the royal call the nobles of Auvergne came forth from their mountains. Beneath the standard of the Count of Clermont, in the early days of February, they reached Blois, where they joined the Scottish force of John Stuart of Darnley, the Constable of Scotland, and a company from Bourbonnais, under the command of the barons La Tour-d'Auvergne and De Thouars.[548]

[Footnote 547: Gallia Christiana, vol. ii, p. 732. Vallet de Viriville, Histoire de Charles VII, vol. i, p. 213; vol. ii, p. 6, note 2. S. Luce, Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy, p. ccxcv.]

[Footnote 548: Journal du siege, pp. 21, 36-38. The accounts of Hemon Raguier, Bibl. Nat. Fr. 7858, fol. 41. Loiseleur, Comptes des depenses de Charles VII pour secourir Orleans, loc. cit.]

Just at this time tidings were received of a convoy of victuals and ammunition which Sir John Fastolf was bringing from Paris to the English at Orleans. With two hundred men-at-arms the Bastard started from Orleans to concert measures with the Count of Clermont. It was decided to attack the convoy. Commanded by the Count of Clermont and the Bastard the whole army from Blois marched towards Etampes with the object of encountering Sir John Fastolf.[549]

[Footnote 549: Journal du siege, p. 37.]

On the 11th of February there sallied forth from Orleans fifteen hundred fighting men commanded by Messire Guillaume d'Albret, Sir William Stuart, brother of the Constable of Scotland, the Marshal de Boussac, the Lord of Gravelle, the two Captains Saintrailles, Captain La Hire, the Lord of Verduzan, and sundry other knights and squires. They were summoned by the Bastard and ordered to join the Count of Clermont's army on the road to Etampes, at the village of Rouvray-Saint-Denis, near Angerville.[550]

[Footnote 550: Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 231. Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 266, 267. Journal du siege, pp. 37, 38.]

The next day, Saturday, the eve of the first Sunday in Lent, when the Count of Clermont's army was still some distance away, they reached Rouvray. There, early in the morning, the Gascons of Poton and La Hire perceived the head of the convoy advancing into the plain, along the Etampes road.

There they were, a line of three hundred carts and wagons full of arms and victuals conducted by English soldiers and merchants and peasants from Normandy, Picardy, and Paris, fifteen hundred men at the most, all tranquil and unsuspecting. There naturally occurred to the Gascons the idea of falling upon these people and making short work with them at the moment when they least expected it.[551] In great haste they sent to the Count of Clermont for permission to attack. As handsome as Absalom and Paris of Troy, full of words and eaten up of vanity, the Count of Clermont, who was but a lad and none of the wisest, had that very day received his spurs and was at his first engagement.[552] He foolishly sent word to the Gascons not to attack before his arrival. The Gascons obeyed greatly disappointed; they saw what was being lost by waiting. And at length, perceiving that they have walked into the lion's mouth, the English leaders, Sir John Fastolf, Sir Richard Gethyn, Bailie of Evreux, Sir Simon Morhier, Provost of Paris, place themselves in good battle array. With their wagons they make a long narrow enclosure in the plain. There they entrench their horsemen, posting the archers in front, behind stakes planted in the ground with their points inclined towards the enemy.[553] Seeing these preparations, the Constable of Scotland loses patience and leads his four hundred horsemen in a rush upon the stakes, where the horses' legs are broken.[554] The English, discovering that it is only a small company they have to deal with, bring out their cavalry and charge with such force that they overthrow the French and slay three hundred. Meanwhile the men of Auvergne had reached Rouvray and were scouring the village, draining the cellars. The Bastard left them and came to the help of the Scots with four hundred fighting men. But he was wounded in the foot, and in great danger of being taken.[555]

[Footnote 551: Journal du siege, pp. 38, 39. Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 267, 268. Mistere du siege, line 8867. Dom Plancher, Histoire de Bourgogne, vol. iv, p. 127.]

[Footnote 552: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 312. Journal du siege, p. 43. Chastellain, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, vol. ii, p. 164.]

[Footnote 553: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 311. Journal du siege, p. 39. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 232. Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 267, 268. Perceval de Cagny, pp. 137, 139.]

[Footnote 554: Journal du siege, pp. 40, 41.]

[Footnote 555: Ibid., p. 43. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, p. 232.]

There fell in this combat Lord William Stuart and his brother, the Lords of Verduzan, of Chateaubrun, of Rochechouart, Jean Chabot with many others of high nobility and great valour.[556] The English, not yet satiated with slaughter, scattered in pursuit of the fugitives. La Hire and Poton, beholding the enemy's standards dispersed over the plain, gathered together as many men as they could, between sixty and eighty, and threw themselves on a small part of the English force, which they overcame. If at this juncture the rest of the French had rallied they might have saved the honour and advantage of the day.[557] But the Count of Clermont, who had not attempted to come to the aid of the Bastard and the Constable of Scotland, displayed his unfailing cowardice to the end. Having seen them all slain, he returned with his army to Orleans, where he arrived well on into the night of the 12th of February.[558] There followed him with their troops in disorder, the Baron La Tour-d'Auvergne, the Viscount of Thouars, the Marshal de Boussac, the Lord of Gravelle and the Bastard, who with the greatest difficulty kept in the saddle. Jamet du Tillay, La Hire, and Poton came last, watching to see that the English did not complete their discomfiture by falling upon them from the forts.[559]