"They want their porridge and their fat bull-beeves:
Either they must be dieted like mules
And have their provender tied to their mouths
Or piteous they will look, like drowned mice."[848]

A sudden humiliation still further weakened the English. Captain Poton de Saintrailles and the two magistrates, Guyon du Fossé and Jean de Saint-Avy, who had gone on an embassy to the Duke of Burgundy, returned to Orléans on the 17th of April. The Duke had granted their request and consented to take the town under his protection. But the Regent, to whom the offer had been made, would not have it thus.

He replied that he would be very sorry if after he had beaten the bush another should go off with the nestlings.[849] Therefore the offer was rejected. Nevertheless the embassy had been by no means useless, and it was something to have raised a new cause of quarrel between the Duke and the Regent. The ambassadors returned accompanied by a Burgundian herald who blew his trumpet in the English camp, and, in the name of his master, commanded all combatants who owed allegiance to the Duke to raise the siege. Some hundreds of archers and men-at-arms, Burgundians, men of Picardy and of Champagne, departed forthwith.[850]

On the next day, at four o'clock in the morning, the citizens emboldened and deeming the opportunity a good one, attacked the camp of Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils. They slew the watch and entered the camp, where they found piles of money, robes of martin, and a goodly store of weapons. Absorbed in pillage, they paid no heed to defending themselves and were surprised by the enemy, who in great force had hastened to the place. They fled pursued by the English who slew many. On that day the town resounded with the lamentations of women weeping for a father, a husband, a brother, kinsmen.[851]

Within those walls, in a space where there was room for not more than fifteen thousand inhabitants, forty thousand[852] were huddled together, one vast multitude agonised by all manner of suffering; depressed by domestic sorrow; racked with anxiety; maddened by constant danger and perpetual panic. Although the wars of those days were not so sanguinary as they became later, the sallies of the inhabitants of Orléans were the occasion of constant and considerable loss of life. Since the middle of March the English bullets had fallen more into the centre of the town; and they were not always harmless. On the eve of Palm Sunday one stone, fired from a mortar, killed or wounded five persons; another, seven.[853] Many of the inhabitants, like the provost, Alain Du Bey, died of fatigue or of the infected air.[854]

In the Christendom of those days all men were taught to believe that earthquakes, wars, famine, pestilence are punishments for wrong-doing. Charles, the Fair Duke of Orléans, good Christian that he was, held that great sorrows had come upon France as chastisement for her sins, to wit: swelling pride, gluttony, sloth, covetousness, lust, and neglect of justice, which were rife in the realm; and in a ballad he discoursed of the evil and its remedy.[855] The people of Orléans firmly believed that this war was sent to them of God to punish sinners, who had worn out his patience. They were aware both of the cause of their sorrows and of the means of remedying them. Such was the teaching of the good friars preachers; and, as Duke Charles put it in his ballad, the remedy was to live well, to amend one's life, to have masses said and sung for the souls of those who had suffered death in the service of the realm, to renounce the sinful life, and to ask forgiveness of Our Lady and the saints.[856] This remedy had been adopted by the people of Orléans. They had had masses said in the Church of Sainte-Croix for the souls of nobles, captains, and men-at-arms killed in their service, and especially for those who had died a piteous death in the Battle of the Herrings. They had offered candles to Our Lady and to the patron saints of the town, and had carried the shrine of Saint-Aignan round the walls.[857]

Every time they felt themselves in great danger, they brought it forth from the Church of Sainte-Croix, carried it in grand procession round the town and over the ramparts,[858] then, having brought it back to the cathedral, they listened to a sermon preached in the porch by a good monk chosen by the magistrates.[859] They said prayers in public and resolved to amend their lives. Wherefore they believed that in Paradise Saint Euverte and Saint-Aignan, touched by their piety, must be interceding for them with Our Lord; and they thought they could hear the voices of the two pontiffs. Saint Euverte was saying, "All-powerful Father, I pray and entreat thee to save the city of Orléans. It is mine. I was its bishop. I am its patron saint. Deliver it not up to its enemies."

Then afterwards spoke Saint-Aignan: "Give peace to the people of Orléans. Father, thou who by the mouth of a child didst appoint me their shepherd, grant that they fall not into the hands of the enemy."

The inhabitants of Orléans expected that the Lord would not at once answer the prayers of the two confessors. Knowing the sternness of his judgments they feared lest he would reply: "For their sins are the French people justly chastised. They suffer because of their disobedience to Holy Church. From the least to the greatest in the realm each vies with the other in evil-doing. The husbandmen, citizens, lawyers and priests are hard and avaricious; the princes, dukes and noble lords are proud, vain, cursers, swearers, and traitors. The corruptness of their lives infects the air. It is just that they suffer chastisement."

That the Lord should speak thus must be expected, because he was angry and because the people of Orléans had greatly sinned. But now, behold, Our Lady, she who loves the King of the Lilies, prays for him and for the Duke of Orléans to the Son, whose pleasure it is to do her will in all things: "My Son, with all my heart I entreat thee to drive the English from the land of France; they have no right to it. If they take Orléans, then they will take the rest at their pleasure. Suffer it not, O my Son, I beseech thee." And Our Lord, at the prayer of his holy Mother, forgives the French and consents to save them.[860]