Part 37 (1/2)
To the ecclesiastics what was told of Jeanne seemed marvellous but not incredible, since parallel instances were to be found in sacred history, which was all the history they knew. To those who were lettered among them their erudition furnished fewer reasons for denial than for doubt or belief. Those who were simple frankly wondered at these things.
Certain of the captains, and certain even of the people, treated them with derision. But by so doing they ran the risk of ill usage. The inhabitants of the city believed in the Maid as firmly as in Our Lord.
From her they expected help and deliverance. They summoned her in a kind of mystic ecstasy and religious frenzy. The fever of the siege had become the fever of the Maid.[864]
[Footnote 864: _Journal du siege_, p. 77.]
Nevertheless, the use made of her by the King's men proved that, following the counsel of the theologians, they were determined to adopt only such methods as were prompted by human prudence. She was to enter the town with a convoy of victuals, then being prepared at Blois by order of the King a.s.sisted by the Queen of Sicily.[865] In all the loyal provinces a new effort was being made for the relief and deliverance of the brave city. Gien, Bourges, Blois, Chateaudun, Tours sent men and victuals; Angers, Poitiers, La Roch.e.l.le, Albi, Moulins, Montpellier, Clermont sulphur, saltpetre, steel, and arms.[866] And if the citizens of Toulouse gave nothing it was because their city, as the notables consulted by the _capitouls_[867] ingenuously declared, had nothing to give--_non habebat de quibus_.[868]
[Footnote 865: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 93. _Geste des n.o.bles_, in _La chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 250. The Accounts of fortresses (1428-1430), in Boucher de Molandon, _Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 30 _et seq._]
[Footnote 866: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 287. _Journal du siege_, p. 81. Boucher de Molandon, _Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp.
28, 29. P. Mantellier, _Histoire du siege_, p. 230.]
[Footnote 867: The name by which the town councillors of Toulouse were called.]
[Footnote 868: _Le siege d'Orleans, Jeanne d'Arc et les capitouls de Toulouse_, by A. Thomas, in _Annales du Midi_, 1889, p. 232. It would appear that Saint-Flour, although solicited, did not contribute: it had enough to do to defend itself from the freebooters who were constantly hovering round. Cf. _Villandrando et les ecorcheurs a Saint-Flour_ by M. Boudet, Clermont-Ferrand, 1895, in 8vo, pp. 18 _et seq._]
The King's councillors, notably my Lord Regnault de Chartres, Chancellor of the Realm, were forming a new army. What they had failed to accomplish, by means of the men of Auvergne, they would now attempt with troops from Anjou and Le Mans. The Queen of Sicily, d.u.c.h.ess of Touraine and Anjou, willingly lent her aid. Were Orleans taken she would be in danger of losing lands by which she set great store.
Therefore she spared neither men, money, nor victuals. After the middle of April, a citizen of Angers, one Jean Langlois, brought letters informing the magistrates of the imminent arrival of the corn she had contributed. The town gave Jean Langlois a present, and the magistrates entertained him at dinner at the ecu Saint-Georges. This corn was a part of that large convoy which the Maid was to accompany.[869]
[Footnote 869: Receipts of the town of Orleans in 1429, in Boucher de Molandon, _Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 36.]
Towards the end of the month, by order of my Lord the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, the captains of the French garrisons of La Beauce and Gatinais, betook themselves to the town to reinforce the army of Blois, the arrival of which was announced. On the 28th, there entered my Lord Florent d'Illiers,[870] Governor of Chateaudun, with four hundred fighting men.[871]
[Footnote 870: Florent d'Illiers, descended from an old family of the Chartres country, had married Jeanne, daughter of Jean de Coutes and sister of the little page whom the Sire de Gaucourt had given the Maid (A. de Villaret).]
[Footnote 871: _Journal du siege_, p. 73. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 278.]
What was to become of Orleans? The siege, badly conducted, was causing the English the most grievous disappointments. Further, their captains perceived they would never succeed in taking the town by means of those bastions, between which anything, either men, victuals, or ammunition, could pa.s.s, and with an army miserably quartered in mud hovels, ravaged by disease, and reduced by desertions to three thousand, or at the most to three thousand two hundred men. They had lost nearly all their horses. Far from being able to continue the attack it was hard for them to maintain the defensive and to hold out in those miserable wooden towers, which, as Le Jouvencel said, were more profitable to the besieged than to the besiegers.[872]
[Footnote 872: _Le Jouvencel_, vol. ii, p. 44.]
Their only hope, and that an uncertain and distant one, lay in the reinforcements, which the Regent was gathering with great difficulty.[873] Meanwhile, time seemed to drag in the besieged town.
The warriors who defended it were brave, but they had come to the end of their resources and knew not what more to do. The citizens were good at keeping guard, but they would not face fire. They did not suspect the miserable condition to which the besiegers had been reduced. Hards.h.i.+p, anxiety, and an infected atmosphere depressed their spirits. Already they seemed to see _Les Coues_ taking the town by storm, killing, pillaging, and ravaging. At every moment they believed themselves betrayed. They were not calm and self-possessed enough to recognise the enormous advantages of their situation. The town's means of communication, whereby it could be indefinitely reinforced and revictualled, were still open. Besides, a relieving army, well in advance of that of the English, was on the point of arriving. It was bringing a goodly drove of cattle, as well as men and ammunition enough to capture the English fortresses in a few days.
[Footnote 873: Jarry, _Le compte de l'armee anglaise_, pp. 75 _et seq._]
With this army the King was sending the Maid who had been promised.
CHAPTER XI
THE MAID AT BLOIS--THE LETTER TO THE ENGLISH--THE DEPARTURE FOR ORLeANS
With an escort of soldiers of fortune the Maid reached Blois at the same time as my Lord Regnault de Chartres, Chancellor of France, and the Sire de Gaucourt, Governor of Orleans.[874] She was in the domain of the Prince, whom it was her great desire to deliver: the people of Blois owed allegiance to Duke Charles, a prisoner in the hands of the English. Merchants were bringing cows, rams, ewes, herds of swine, grain, powder and arms into the town.[875] The Admiral, De Culant, and the Lord Ambroise de Lore had come from Orleans to superintend the preparations. The Queen of Sicily herself had gone to Blois.
Notwithstanding that at this time the King consulted her but seldom, he now sent to her the Duke of Alencon, commissioned to concert with her measures for the relief of the city of Orleans.[876] There came also the Sire de Rais, of the house of Laval and of the line of the Dukes of Brittany, a n.o.ble scarce twenty-four, generous and magnificent, bringing in his train, with a goodly company from Maine and Anjou, organs for his chapel, choristers, and little singing-boys from the choir school.[877] The Marshal de Boussac, the Captains La Hire and Poton came from Orleans.[878] An army of seven thousand men a.s.sembled beneath the walls of the town.[879] All that was now waited for was the money necessary to pay the cost of the victuals and the hire of the soldiers. Captains and men-at-arms did not give their services on credit. As for the merchants, if they risked the loss of their victuals and their life, it was only for ready money.[880] No cash, no cattle--and the wagons stayed where they were.
[Footnote 874: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 4.]