On the next day, being May the twentieth, he came to me again, with a wan face.
“Burgundians are in Claroix,” said he, “across the river, and yet others, with Jean de Luxembourg, at Margny, scarce a mile away, at the end of the causeway through the water meadows, beyond the bridge. And the Duke is at Coudun, a league off to the right of Claroix, and I have clomb the tower-top, and thence seen the English at Venette, on the left hand of the causeway. All is undone.”
“Nay, father, be of better cheer. Our fort at the bridge end is stronger than Les Tourelles were at Orleans. The English shot can scarce cross the river. Bridge the enemy has none, and northward and eastward all is open. Be of better heart, Heaven helps France.”
“We have sent to summon the Maid,” said he, “from Crepy-en-Valois. In her is all my hope; but you speak lightly, for you are young, and war is your trade.”
“And praying is yours, father, wherefore you should be bolder than I.”
But he shook his head.
So two days passed, and nothing great befell, but in the grey dawn of May the twenty-third I was held awake by clatter of horsemen riding down the street under the window of my chamber. And after matins came Father François, his face very joyful, with the tidings that the Maid, and a company of some three hundred lances of hers, had ridden in from Crepy-en-Valois, she making her profit of the darkness to avoid the Burgundians.
Then I deemed that the enemy would soon have news of her, and all that day I heard the bells ring merry peals, and the trumpets sounding. About three hours after noonday Father François came again, and told me that the Maid would make a sally, and cut the Burgundians in twain; and now nothing would serve me but I must be borne in a litter to the walls, and see her banner once more on the wind.
So, by the goodwill of Father François, some lay brethren bore me forth from the convent, which is but a stone’s-throw from the bridge. They carried me across the Oise to a mill hard by the boulevard of the Bridge fort, whence, from a window, I beheld all that chanced. No man sitting in the gallery of a knight’s hall to see jongleurs play and sing could have had a better stance, or have seen more clearly all the mischief that befell.
The town of Compiègne lies on the river Oise, as Orleans on the Loire, but on the left, not the right hand of the water. The bridge is strongly guarded, as is custom, by a tower at the further end, and, in front of that tower, a boulevard. All the water was gay to look on, being covered with boats, as if for a holiday, but these were manned by archers, whom Guillaume de Flavy had set to shoot at the enemy, if they drove us back, and to rescue such of our men as might give ground, if they could not win into the boulevard at the bridge end.