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._]
[Illustration: VIEW OF ORLEANS, 1428-1429]
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]
[Footnote 556: _Journal du siege_, p. 43. _Chronique de la Pucelle_,
p. 269. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 313.]
[Footnote 557: _Journal du siege_, p. 42. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_,
vol. i, p. 63.]
[Footnote 558: _Journal du siege_, p. 44.]
[Footnote 559: _Ibid._, pp. 43, 44.]
Because the Lenten fast was beginning, the victuals which Sir John
Fastolf was bringing from Paris to the English round Orleans,
consisted largely of red herrings, which had suffered during the
battle from the casks containing them having been broken in. To honour
the French for having discomfited so many natives of Dieppe the
delighted English merrily named the combat the Battle of the
Herrings.[560]
[Footnote 560: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 230-233.
Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 313. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. ii, p.
62. Symphorien Guyon, _Histoire de la ville d'Orleans_, vol. ii, p.
195. Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, p. 37.]
Albeit the Count of Clermont was the King's cousin, the people of
Orleans received him but coldly. He was held to have acted shamefully
and treacherously; and there were those who let him know what they
thought. On the morrow he made off with his men of Auvergne and
Bourbonnais amidst the rejoicings of the townsfolk who did not want to
support those who would not fight.[561] At the same time there left
the city Sire Louis de Culant, High Admiral of France and Captain La
Hire, with two thousand men-at-arms. At their departure there arose
from the citizens such howls of displeasure, that to appease them it
was necessary to explain that the captains were going to fetch fresh
supplies of men and victuals, which was the actual truth. My Lord
Regnault de Chartres, the date of whose arrival at Orleans is
uncertain, departed with them; but he could not be reproached for
going, since as Chancellor of France his place was in the King's
Council. But what must indeed have appeared strange was that my Lord
Saint-Michel, the successor of Saint-Euverte and Saint-Aignan, should
quit his episcopal see and desert his afflicted spouse.[562] When the
rats go the vessel is on the point of sinking. Only the Lord Bastard
and the Marshal de Boussac were left in the city. And even the Marshal
was not to stay long. A month later he went, saying that the King had
need of him and that he must go and take possession of broad lands
fallen to him through his wife, by the death of his brother-in-law,
the Lord of Chateaubrun, at the Battle of the Herrings.[563] The
townsfolk deemed the reason a good one. He promised to return before
long, and they were content. Now the Marshal de Boussac was one of the
barons who had the welfare of the kingdom most at heart.[564] But he
who has lands must needs do his duty by them.
[Footnote 561: 18 Feb. _Journal du siege_, pp. 50, 52.]
[Footnote 562: _Ibid._, p. 51.]
[Footnote 563: 16 March. _Ibid._, p. 59.]
[Footnote 564: Thaumas de la Thaumassiere, _Histoire du Berry_,
Bourges, 1689, in fol., pp. 648-656.]
Believing that they were betrayed and abandoned, the citizens
bethought them of securing their own safety. Since the King was not
able to protect them, they resolved that in order to escape from the
English, they would give themselves to one more powerful than he.
Therefore, to Lord Philip, Duke of Burgundy, they despatched Captain
Poton of Saintrailles, who was known to him because he had been his
prisoner, and two magistrates of the city, Jean de Saint-Avy and Guion
du Fosse. Their mission was to pray and entreat the Duke to look
favourably on the town, and for the sake of his good kinsman, their
Lord, Charles, Duke of Orleans, a prisoner in England, and thus
prevented from defending his own domain, to induce the English to
raise the siege until such time as the troubles of the realm should be
set at rest.[565] Thus they were offering to place their town as a
pledge in the hands of the Duke of Burgundy. Such an offer was in
accordance with the secret desire of the Duke, who, having sent a few
hundred Burgundian horse to the walls of Orleans, was helping the
English, and did not intend to do it for nothing.[566]
[Footnote 565: _Journal du siege_, p. 52.]
[Footnote 566: Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 317. _Journal du siege_, p. 52.
_Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 269. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i,
p. 65. Morosini, pp. 16, 17, vol. iv, supplement xiv. Du Tillet,
_Recueil des traites_, p. 221.]
Pending the uncertain and distant day when they might be thus
protected, the people of Orleans continued to protect themselves as
best they could. But they were anxious and not without reason. For
although they might prevent the enemy from entering within the city,
they could devise no means for speedily driving him away. In the early
days of March they observed with concern that the English were digging
a ditch to serve them as cover in passing from one bastion to another,
from la Croix-Boissee to Saint-Ladre. This work they attempted to
destroy. They vigorously attacked the _Godons_ and took a few
prisoners. With two shots from his culverin Maitre Jean killed five
persons, including Lord Gray, the nephew of the late Earl of
Salisbury.[567] But they could not hinder the English from completing
their work. The siege continued with terrible vigour. Agitated by
doubts and fears, consumed with anxiety, without sleep, without rest,
and succeeding in nothing, they began to despair. Suddenly a strange
rumour arises, spreads, and gains credence.
[Footnote 567: 3 March. _Journal du siege_, p. 54.]
It is told that there had lately passed through the town of Gien a
maid (_une pucelle_), who proclaimed that she was on her way to Chinon
to the gentle Dauphin, and said that she had been sent by God to raise
the siege of Orleans and take the King to his anointing at Reims.[568]
[Footnote 568: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 21, 23. _Journal du siege_, pp.
46 _et seq._ _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 278.]
In colloquial language, a maid (_une pucelle_) was a girl of humble
birth, who earned her livelihood by manual work and was generally a
servant. Thus the leaden pumps used in kitchens were usually called
_pucelles_. The term was doubtless vulgar, but it had no evil meaning.
In spite of Clopinel's naughty saying: "_Je legue ma pucelle a mon
cure_," it was used to describe a respectable girl of good
morals.[569]
[Footnote 569: La Curne, under the word _Pucelle_; Du Cange, ad. v.
_Pucella_.
_Je laisse cent sols de deniers
A ceulx qui boivent voluntiers
Et s'ay laissie a mon cure
Ma pucelle quand je mourrai,_
says Eustache Deschamps (quoted by La Curne); Du Cange cites a will of
1274: "afterwards I leave to Laurence _ma pucelle_ and twelve _livres_
of Paris."]
The tidings that a little saint of lowly origin, one of Our Lord's
poor, was bringing divine help to Orleans made a great impression on
minds excited by the fevers of the siege and rendered religious
through fear. The Maid inspired them with a burning curiosity, which
the Lord Bastard, like a wise man, deemed it prudent to encourage. He
despatched to Chinon two knights charged to inquire concerning the
damsel. One was Sire Archambaud of Villars, Governor of Montargis,
whom the Bastard had already sent to the King during the siege; he was
an aged knight, once the intimate friend of Duke Louis of Orleans, and
one of the seven Frenchmen who fought against the seven Englishmen at
Montendre,[570] in 1402: an Orleans citizen of the early days,
notwithstanding his great age he had vigourously defended Les
Tourelles on the 21st of October. The other, Messire Jamet du Tillay,
a Breton squire, had recently won great honour by covering the retreat
of Rouvray with his men. They set forth and the whole town anxiously
awaited their return.[571]
[Footnote 570: _Relation contemporaine du combat de Montendre_, in
_Bulletin de la Societe de l'Histoire de France_, 1834, pp. 109-113.]
[Footnote 571: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 3, 125, 215. _Journal du siege_,
pp. 5, 6, 31, 44. _Nouvelle biographie generale_, articles by Vallet
de Viriville.]