"Ha! my standard, my standard!"
The Basque stood firm, not knowing who was pulling thus from above. And the Maid would not let it go. The nobles and captains saw the standard shake, took it for a sign and rallied. Meanwhile Sire d'Aulon had reached the rampart. He imagined that the Basque was following close behind. But, when he turned round he perceived that he had stopped on the other side of the ditch, and he cried out to him: "Eh! Basque, what did you promise me?"
At this cry the Basque pulled so hard that the Maid let go, and he bore the standard to the rampart.[1087]
Jeanne understood and was satisfied. To those near her she said: "Look and see when the flag of my standard touches the bulwark."
A knight replied: "Jeanne, the flag touches."
Then she cried: "All is yours. Enter."[1088]
Straightway nobles and citizens, men-at-arms, archers, townsfolk threw themselves wildly into the ditch and climbed up the palisades so quickly and in such numbers that they looked like a flock of birds descending on a hedge.[1089] And the French, who had now entered within the fortifications, saw retreating before them, but with their faces turned proudly towards the enemy, the Lords Moleyns and Poynings, Sir Thomas Giffart, Baillie of Mantes, and Captain Glasdale, who were covering the flight of their men to Les Tourelles.[1090] In his hand Glasdale was holding the standard of Chandos, which, after having waved over eighty years of victories, was now retreating before the standard of a child.[1091] For the Maid was there, standing upon the rampart. And the English, panic-stricken, wondered what kind of a witch this could be whose powers did not depart with the flowing of her blood, and who with charms healed her deep wounds. Meanwhile she was looking at them kindly and sadly and crying out, her voice broken with sobs:
"Glassidas! Glassidas! surrender, surrender to the King of Heaven. Thou hast called me strumpet; but I have great pity on thy soul and on the souls of thy men."[1092]
At the same time, from the walls of the town and the bulwark of La Belle Croix cannon balls rained down upon Les Tourelles.[1093] Montargis and Rifflart cast forth stones. Maître Guillaume Duisy's new cannon, from the Chesneau postern, hurled forth balls weighing one hundred and twenty pounds.[1094] Les Tourelles were attacked from the bridge side. Across the arch broken by the English a narrow footway was thrown, and Messire Nicole de Giresme, a knight in holy orders, was the first to pass over.[1095] Those who followed him set fire to the palisade which blocked the approach to the fort on that side. Thus the six hundred English, their strength and their weapons alike exhausted, found themselves assailed both in front and in the rear. In a crafty and terrible manner they were also attacked from beneath. The people of Orléans had loaded a great barge with pitch, tow, faggots, horse-bones, old shoes, resin, sulphur, ninety-eight pounds of olive oil and such other materials as might easily take fire and smoke. They had steered it under the wooden bridge, thrown by the enemy from Les Tourelles to the bulwark: they had anchored the barge there and set fire to its cargo. The fire from the barge had caught the bridge just when the English were retreating. Through smoke and flames the six hundred passed over the burning platform. At length it came to the turn of William Glasdale, Lord Poynings and Lord Moleyns, who with thirty or forty captains, were the last to leave the lost bulwark; but when they set foot on the bridge, its beams, reduced to charcoal, crumbled beneath them, and they all with the Chandos standard were engulfed in the Loire.[1096]
Jeanne moved to pity wept over the soul of Glassidas and over the souls of those drowned with him.[1097] The captains, who were with her, likewise grieved over the death of these valiant men, reflecting that they had done the French a great wrong by being drowned, for their ransom would have brought great riches.[1098]