The Life of Joan of Arc Part 23

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.]

From Janville he sent two heralds to Orleans to summon the inhabitants to surrender. The magistrates lodged these heralds honourably in the faubourg Bannier, at the Hotel 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.[507]

[Footnote 507: Abbe Dubois, _Histoire du siege_, p. 11. Jarry, _Le compte de l'armee anglaise_, p. 82. Boucher de Molandon, _Les comptes de ville d'Orleans des quatorzieme et quinzieme siecles_, Orleans, 1880, in 8vo, pp. 91 _et seq._]

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.[508]

[Footnote 508: Lottin, _Recherches_, vol. i, p. 205. P. Mantellier, _Histoire du siege_, p. 17.]

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.[509] 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 evreux; Lord Richard Gray, nephew of the Earl of Salisbury; Gilbert Halsall, Richard Panyngel, Thomas Guerard, knights, and many others of great renown.

[Footnote 509: _Journal du siege_, p. 4.]

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 evreux; of William Mollins, knight; of William Glasdale, whom the French called Glacidas, squire, Bailie of Alencon, a man of humble birth.[510]

[Footnote 510: _Journal du siege_, pp. 2-4. Boucher de Molandon et de Beaucorps, _L'armee anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 129.]

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-b.a.l.l.s, 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.[511]

[Footnote 511: L. Jarry, _Le compte de l'armee anglaise_, pp. 26, 28, 29. Boucher de Molandon and de Beaucorps, _L'armee anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 50 _et seq._ Mademoiselle A. de Villaret, _Campagne des anglais_, ch. iv, pp. 39, 53; Accounts of the siege, nos. 30, 31, p. 214. Lottin, _Recherches_, vol. i, p. 205.]

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.[512]

[Footnote 512: L. Jarry, _Le compte de l'armee anglaise_, p. 61.]

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,[513]

and, on the following Sunday, they hurled down upon the city a shower of stone cannon-b.a.l.l.s, which did great damage to the houses, but killed no one save a woman of Orleans, 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.

[Footnote 513: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 258. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, p. 66. Jean Raoulet in Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. iii, p. 198. _Journal du siege_, pp. 1, 2. Abbe Dubois, _Histoire du siege_, p. 246. P. Mantellier, _Histoire du siege_, p. 27. H. Baraude, _Le siege d'Orleans et Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 31.]

That same week the English cannon destroyed twelve water mills near La Tour Neuve. Whereupon the people of Orleans constructed within the city eleven mills worked by horses,[514] 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 a.s.sault 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 _G.o.dons_.[515] The attack was repulsed; but two days later the French perceived that the outworks were undermined; the English had dug subterranean pa.s.sages, 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 f.a.ggots on the bridge, breaking two of its arches, one in front, the other behind their earthwork.[516]

[Footnote 514: _Journal du siege_, p. 4.]

[Footnote 515: _Ibid._, pp. 7-8. Lottin, _Recherches_, vol. i, pp.

208, 210.]

[Footnote 516: _Journal du siege_, pp. 5-8.]

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 vanis.h.i.+ng 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 Orleans by a.s.sault. 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 G.o.d, who had been irritated by the Earl of Salisbury's despoiling monks and pillaging the Church of Notre Dame de Clery. It was said also that he was punished for having broken his oath, for he had promised the Duke of Orleans 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.[517] 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 b.a.l.l.s, 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. G.o.d receive his soul! But he has brought us into a sorry plight."

[Footnote 517: _Journal du siege_, pp. 10, 12. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 264. Monstrelet, vol. iv, p. 298. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 63. _Mistere d'Orleans_, line 3104 _et seq._ _Chronique de la fete_ in _Trial_, vol. v, p. 288. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 131. Lorenzo Buonincontro in Muratori, _Rerum Italicarum Scriptores_, vol. xxi, col. 136. Jarry, _Le compte de l'armee anglaise_, pp. 85, 86.]

Men told how Maitre Jean de Builhons, a famous astrologer, had prophesied this death,[518] 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:[519]

Certes le duc de Bedefort Se sage est, il se tendra Avec sa femme en ung fort, Chaudement le mieulx[520] que il porra, De bon ypocras finera, Garde son corps, lesse la guerre: Povre et riche porrist en terre.[521]