Part 23 (1/2)
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 hors.e.m.e.n, 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d 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 G.o.d. In those days G.o.d 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. G.o.d 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 pet.i.tions 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 G.o.d. 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sault.
The blessed saint went up on to the ramparts, knelt and prayed, and then, having prayed, spat upon the enemy. By G.o.d'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 a.s.sailed 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d; divine succour, however, would not fail them. And soon, according to the promise he had given them, G.o.d 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 wors.h.i.+pped. 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 n.o.bles_, p. 204. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 256. Letter from Salisbury to the Commons of London, in Delpit, _Collection de doc.u.ments francais qui se trouvent en Angleterre_, pp.
236, 237. Jarry, _Le compte de l'armee anglaise_, pp. 79-89.]