That same week the English cannon destroyed twelve water mills near La Tour Neuve. Whereupon the people of Orléans constructed within the city eleven mills worked by horses, in order that there might be no lack of flour. There were a few skirmishes at the bridge. Then on Thursday, the 21st of October, the English attempted to storm the outworks of Les Tourelles. The little band of adventurers in the service of the town and the city troops made a gallant defence. The women helped; throughout the four hours that the assault lasted long lines of gossips might be seen hurrying to the bridge, bearing their pots and pans filled with burning coals and boiling oil and fat, frantic with joy at the idea of scalding the Godons. The attack was repulsed; but two days later the French perceived that the outworks were undermined; the English had dug subterranean passages, to the props of which they had afterwards set fire. The outworks having become untenable in the opinion of the soldiers, they were destroyed and abandoned. It was deemed impossible to defend Les Tourelles thus dismantled. Those towers which would once have arrested an army’s progress for a whole month were now useless against cannon. In front of La Belle Croix the townsfolk erected a rampart of earth and wood. Beyond this outwork two arches of the bridge were cut and replaced by a movable platform. And when this was done, the fort of Les Tourelles was abandoned to the English with no great regret. The latter set up a rampart of earth and faggots on the bridge, breaking two of its arches, one in front, the other behind their earthwork.
On the Sunday, towards evening, a few hours after the flag of St. George had been planted on the fort, the Earl of Salisbury, with William Glasdale and several captains, went up one of the towers to observe the lie of the city. Looking from a window he beheld the walls armed with cannon; the towers vanishing into pinnacles or with terraces on their flat roofs; the battlements dry and grey; the suburbs adorned for a few days longer with the fine stone-work of their churches and monasteries; the vineyards and the woods yellow with autumn tints; the Loire and its oval-shaped islands, — all slumbering in the evening calm. He was looking for the weak point in the ramparts, the place where he might make a breach and put up his scaling ladders. For his plan was to take Orléans by assault. William Glasdale said to him, “My Lord, look well at your city. You have a good bird’s-eye view of it from here.”
At this moment a cannon-ball breaks off a corner of the window recess, a stone from the wall strikes Salisbury, carrying away one eye and one side of his face. The shot had been fired from La Tour Notre-Dame. That at least was generally believed. It was never known who had fired it. A townsman, alarmed by the noise, hastened to the spot, saw a child coming out of the tower and the cannon deserted. It was thought that the hand of an innocent child had fired the bullet by the permission of the Mother of God, who had been irritated by the Earl of Salisbury’s despoiling monks and pillaging the Church of Notre Dame de Cléry. It was said also that he was punished for having broken his oath, for he had promised the Duke of Orléans to respect his lands and his towns. Borne secretly to Meung-sur-Loire, he died there on Wednesday the 27th of October; and the English were very sorrowful. Most of them felt that loss to be irreparable which had deprived them of a chief who was conducting the siege vigorously, and who in less than twelve days had captured Les Tourelles, the very corner-stone of the city’s defence. But there were others who reflected that he must have been very simple to imagine that thick ramparts could be overthrown by stone balls, the force of which had already been spent in crossing the wide stretches of the river, and that he must have been mad to attempt to storm a city which could only be reduced by famine. Then they thought: “He is dead. God receive his soul! But he has brought us into a sorry plight.”
Men told how Maître Jean de Builhons, a famous astrologer, had prophesied this death, and how in the night before the fatal day, the Earl of Salisbury himself had dreamed that he was being clawed by a wolf. A Norman clerk composed two songs on this sad death, one against the English, the other for them. The first, which is the better, closes with a couplet, worthy in its profound wisdom of King Solomon himself:
Certes le duc de Bedefort
Se sage est, il se tendra
Avec sa femme en ung fort,
Chaudement le mieulx que il porra,
De bon ypocras finera,
Garde son corps, lesse la guerre:
Povre et riche porrist en terre.
The day after the taking of Les Tourelles and when its loss had been remedied as best might be, the King’s lieutenant-general entered the town. He was le Seigneur Jean, Count of Porcien and of Montaing, Grand Chamberlain of France, son of Duke Louis of Orléans, who had been assassinated in 1407 by order of Jean-Sans-Peur, and whose death had armed the Armagnacs against the Burgundians. Dame de Cany was his mother, but he ought to have been the son of the Duchess of Orléans since the Duke was his father. Not only was it no drawback to children to be born outside wedlock and of an adulterous union, but it was a great honor to be called the bastard of a prince. There have never been so many bastards as during these wars, and the saying ran: “Children are like corn: sow stolen wheat and it will sprout as well as any other.” The Bastard of Orléans was then twenty-six at the most. The year before, with a small company, he had hastened to revictual the inhabitants of Montargis, who were besieged by the Earl of Warwick. He had not only revictualled the town; but with the help of Captain La Hire had driven away the besiegers. This augured well for Orléans. The Bastard was the cleverest baron of his day. He knew grammar and astrology, and spoke more correctly than any one. In his affability and intelligence he resembled his father, but he was more cautious and more temperate. His amiability, his courtesy and his discretion caused it to be said that he was in favour with all the ladies, even with the Queen. In everything he was apt, in war as well as in diplomacy, marvellously adroit, and a consummate dissembler.
My Lord the Bastard brought in his train several knights, captains, and squires of renown, that is to say, of high birth or of great valour: the Marshal de Boussac, Messire Jacques de Chabannes, Seneschal of Bourbonnais, the Lord of Chaumont, Messire Théaulde of Valpergue, a Lombard knight, Captain La Hire, wondrous in war and in pillage, who had lately done so well in the relief of Montargis, and Jean, Sire de Bueil, one of those youths who had come to the King on a lame horse and who had taken lessons from two wise women, Suffering and Poverty. These knights came with a company of eight hundred men, archers, arbalesters, and Italian foot, bearing broad shields like those of St. George in the churches of Venice and Florence. They represented all the nobles and free-lances who for the moment could be gathered together.
After the death of its chief, Salisbury’s army was paralysed by disunion and diminished by desertions. Winter was coming: the captains, seeing there was nothing to be done for the present, broke up their camp, and, with such men as remained to them, went off to shelter behind the walls of Meung and Jargeau. On the evening of the 8th of November all that remained before the city was the garrison of Les Tourelles, consisting of five hundred Norman horse, commanded by William Molyns and William Glasdale. The French might besiege and take them: they would not budge. The Governor, the old Sire de Gaucourt, had just fallen on the pavement in La Rue des Hôtelleries and broken his arm; he couldn’t move. But what about the rest of the defenders?
The truth is, no one knew what to do. These warriors were doubtless acquainted with many measures for the succour of a besieged town, but they were all measures of surprise. Their only devices were sallies, ambuscades, skirmishes, and other such valiant feats of arms. Should they fail in raising a siege by surprise, then they remained inactive, — at the end of their ideas and of their resources. Their most experienced captains were incapable of any common effort, — of any concerted action, of any enterprise in short, requiring a continuous mental effort and the subordination of all to one. Each was for his own hand and thought of nothing but booty. The defence of Orléans was altogether beyond their intelligence.
For twenty-one days Captain Glasdale remai
ned entrenched, with his five hundred Norman horse, under the battered walls of Les Tourelles, between his earthworks on Le Portereau side, which couldn’t have become very formidable as yet, and his barrier on the bridge, which being but wood, a spark could easily have set on fire.
Meanwhile the citizens were at work. After the departure of the English they performed a huge and arduous task. Concluding, and rightly, that the enemy would return not through La Sologne this time, but through La Beauce, they destroyed all their suburbs on the west, north, and east, as they had already destroyed or begun to destroy Le Portereau. They burned and pulled down twenty-two churches and monasteries, among others the church of Saint-Aignan and its monastery, so beautiful that it was a pity to see it spoiled, the church of Saint Euverte, the church of Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils, not without promising the blessed patrons of the town that when they should have delivered the city from the English, the citizens would build them new and more beautiful churches.
On the 30th of November Captain Glasdale beheld Sir John Talbot approaching Les Tourelles. He brought three hundred men furnished with cannon, mortars, and other engines of war. Thenceforward the bombardment was resumed more violently than before: roofs were broken through, walls were battered, but there was more noise than work. In La Rue Aux-Petits-Souliers a cannon-ball fell on to a table, round which five persons were dining, and no one was hurt. It was thought to have been a miracle of Our Lord worked at the intercession of Saint Aignan, the patron saint of the city. The people of Orléans had wherewith to answer the besiegers. For the seventy cannon and mortars, of which the city artillery consisted, there were twelve professional gunners with servants to wait on them. A very clever founder named Guillaume Duisy had cast a mortar which from its position at the crook or spur by the Chesneau postern, hurled stone bullets of one hundred and twenty livres on to Les Tourelles. Near this mortar were two cannon, one called Montargis because the town of Montargis had lent it, the other named Rifflart after a very popular demon. A culverin firer, a Lorrainer living at Angers, had been sent by the King to Orléans, where he was paid twelve livres a month. His name was Jean de Montesclère. He was held to be the best master of his trade. He had in his charge a huge culverin which inflicted great damage on the English.
A jovial fellow was Maître 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 Maître Jean soon returned to his post and bombarded them as before. 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. And so Maître Jean’s culverin was brought wherever it was needed.
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. Noël is a gay feast. Captain Glasdale wanted to celebrate it with carol singing according to the English custom. He asked my Lord Jean, the Bastard of Orléans, and Marshal de Boussac to send him a band of musicians, which they graciously did. The Orléans 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 Orléans, 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 balls of stone and copper with renewed vigour.
That which the people of Orléans 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. 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-Privé. Another they erected in the little island to the right of Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils. 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-Boissée, 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.
By these works half of Orléans 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.
It became evident to Lord Scales, William Pole, and Sir John Talbot, who since Salisbury’s 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 Godons, 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 assault.
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, rushing against the barriers with loud cries of Saint George; but the king’s men and the city bands drove them back to their bastions. Each of these ill planned and useless assaults cost them many men. And they already lacked both soldiers and horses.
Neither had they succeeded in alarming the people of Orléans 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 Bannière 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.
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 Chaîlly, 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.
The King’s council was making every effort to succour Orléans. The King summoned the nobles of Auvergne. They had been true to the Lilies ever since the day when the Dauphin, Canon of Notre-Dame-d’Ancis, and barely more than a child, had travelled over wild peaks to subdue two or three rebellious barons. At the royal call the nobles of Auvergne came forth from their mountains. Beneath the standard of the Count of Clermont, in the early days of February, they reached Blois, where they joined the Scottish force of John Stuart of Darnley, the Constable of Scotland,
and a company from Bourbonnais, under the command of the barons La Tour-d’Auvergne and De Thouars.
Just at this time tidings were received of a convoy of victuals and ammunition which Sir John Fastolf was bringing from Paris to the English at Orléans. With two hundred men-at-arms the Bastard started from Orléans to concert measures with the Count of Clermont. It was decided to attack the convoy. Commanded by the Count of Clermont and the Bastard the whole army from Blois marched towards Étampes with the object of encountering Sir John Fastolf.
On the 11th of February there sallied forth from Orléans fifteen hundred fighting men commanded by Messire Guillaume d’Albret, Sir William Stuart, brother of the Constable of Scotland, the Marshal de Boussac, the Lord of Gravelle, the two Captains Saintrailles, Captain La Hire, the Lord of Verduzan, and sundry other knights and squires. They were summoned by the Bastard and ordered to join the Count of Clermont’s army on the road to Étampes, at the village of Rouvray-Saint-Denis, near Angerville.
The next day, Saturday, the eve of the first Sunday in Lent, when the Count of Clermont’s army was still some distance away, they reached Rouvray. There, early in the morning, the Gascons of Poton and La Hire perceived the head of the convoy advancing into the plain, along the Étampes road.
There they were, a line of three hundred carts and wagons full of arms and victuals conducted by English soldiers and merchants and peasants from Normandy, Picardy, and Paris, fifteen hundred men at the most, all tranquil and unsuspecting. There naturally occurred to the Gascons the idea of falling upon these people and making short work with them at the moment when they least expected it. In great haste they sent to the Count of Clermont for permission to attack. As handsome as Absalom and Paris of Troy, full of words and eaten up of vanity, the Count of Clermont, who was but a lad and none of the wisest, had that very day received his spurs and was at his first engagement. He foolishly sent word to the Gascons not to attack before his arrival. The Gascons obeyed greatly disappointed; they saw what was being lost by waiting. And at length, perceiving that they have walked into the lion’s mouth, the English leaders, Sir John Fastolf, Sir Richard Gethyn, Bailie of Évreux, Sir Simon Morhier, Provost of Paris, place themselves in good battle array. With their wagons they make a long narrow enclosure in the plain. There they entrench their horsemen, posting the archers in front, behind stakes planted in the ground with their points inclined towards the enemy. Seeing these preparations, the Constable of Scotland loses patience and leads his four hundred horsemen in a rush upon the stakes, where the horses’ legs are broken. The English, discovering that it is only a small company they have to deal with, bring out their cavalry and charge with such force that they overthrow the French and slay three hundred. Meanwhile the men of Auvergne had reached Rouvray and were scouring the village, draining the cellars. The Bastard left them and came to the help of the Scots with four hundred fighting men. But he was wounded in the foot, and in great danger of being taken.
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 422