Part 24 (2/2)
[Footnote 533: _Livre_, if it were of Paris, was equivalent to one s.h.i.+lling, if of Tours, to ten pence (W.S.).]
[Footnote 534: _Journal du siege_, p. 18. S. Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc a Domremy_, p. clx.x.xv. 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d 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 b.a.l.l.s 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 Pet.i.te 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 _G.o.dons_, 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 a.s.sault.[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 ill.u.s.trations 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, rus.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.saults 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.]
<script>