Part 22 (1/2)
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 n.o.ble 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._]
Pa.s.sing 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 a.r.s.enal. 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 ab.u.t.ted 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 b.u.t.tress 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 b.u.t.tresses 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 ill.u.s.trations.
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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 b.i.+.c.he-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 b.i.+.c.he-d'Orge by the name of Pet.i.te 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. Ma.n.u.script 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.