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 Orléans, on the height of Chécy, l’Île aux Bourdons was separated from the Sologne bank by a thin arm of the river and by a narrow channel from l’Île Charlemagne and l’Île-aux-Bœufs, 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’Île-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.
The suburbs of Orléans 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. 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.
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. Leaving this suburb and passing by the vineyards along the sandy branch of the Loire extending between the bank of the river and l’Île-aux-Bœufs 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 Chécy 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-Ensentelée. 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.
Towards the west the faubourg of La Porte Renard stretched out into the fields along the road to Châteaudun, and the hamlet of Saint-Laurent along the road to Blois.
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.
The inhabitants of Orléans 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.
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 Cloître-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. Such an example was sufficient to warn the people of Orléans.
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. 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.
The people of Orléans 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. 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.
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. 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, 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.
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 Orléans, the King’s Lieutenant General, went to Chinon and Poitiers to obtain supplies of men and money 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. 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, Orléans and Cœur-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.
The inhabitants of Orléans 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 def
erred 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 Orléans 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. 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.
The following is his story as it was known to the people of Orléans. When still young, Saint-Aignan had withdrawn to a solitary place near Orléans. 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 Orléans, 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 Orléans. Then the blessed Aignan went forth into the city of Arles, to the Patrician Aëtius, 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 Orléans, 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.
Wherefore, in this great peril of the English, the citizens of Orléans 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. 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 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.
Thus did the people of Orléans 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 Béarn; Don Matthias of Aragon; Jean de Saintrailles and Poton de Saintrailles. The Abbot of Cerquenceaux, sometime student at the University of Orléans, arrived at the head of a band of followers. 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, affairs in Orléans were in truth not different from what they were in other besieged towns; before long the inhabitants began to complain of the garrison.
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.
From Janville he sent two heralds to Orléans to summon the inhabitants to surrender. The magistrates lodged these heralds honourably in the faubourg Bannier, at the Hôtel 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.
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.
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. 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 Évreux; Lord Richard Gray, nephew of the Earl of Salisbury; Gilbert Halsall, Richard Panyngel, Thomas Guérard, knights, and many others of great renown.
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 Évreux; of William Mollins, knight; of William Glasdale, whom the French called Glacidas, squire, Bailie of Alençon, a man of humble birth.
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.
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.
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, 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 Orléans, 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.
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 421