“For in no other can we take it,” said he, “save, indeed, by miracle. For they are richly provisioned, and our hope is that, if we can make a breach, there may be a stir of the common folk, who are well weary of the English and the Burgundians.”
Now, with his talk of adventures, and with high hopes, I was so heartened up, that, to my shame, my grief fell from me, and I went to my bed to dream of trenches and escalades, glory and gain. But Elliot, I fear me, passed a weary night, and a sorry, whereas I had scarce laid my head on my pillow, as it seemed, when I heard Thomas shouting to the grooms, and clatter of our horses’ hoofs in the courtyard. So I leaped up, though it was scarce daylight, and we rode northwards before the full coming of the dawn.
Here I must needs write of a shameful thing, which I knew not then, or I would have ridden with a heavier heart, but I was told concerning the matter many years after, by Messire Enguerrand de Monstrelet, a very learned knight, and deep in the counsels of the Duke of Burgundy.
“You were all sold,” he said to me, at Dijon, in the year of our Lord fourteen hundred and forty-seven—“you were all sold when you marched against Paris town. For the Maid, with D’Alençon, rode from Compiègne towards Paris, on the twenty-third of August, if I remember well”; and here he turned about certain written parchments that lay by him. “Yea, on the twenty-third she left Compiègne, but on the twenty-eighth of that month the Archbishop of Reims entered the town, and there he met the ambassadors of the Good Duke of Burgundy. There he and they made a compact between them, binding your King and the Duke, that their truce should last till Noël, but that the duke might use his men in the defence of Paris against all that might make onfall. Now, the Archbishop and the King knew well that the Maid was, in that hour, marching on Paris. To what purpose make a truce, and leave out of the peace the very point where war should be? Manifestly the French King never meant to put forth the strength of his army in helping the Maid. There was to be truce between France and Burgundy, but none between England and the Maid.”
So Messire Enguerrand told me, a learned knight and a grave, and thus was the counsel of the saints defeated by the very King whom they sought to aid. But of this shameful treaty we men-at-arms knew nothing, and so hazarded our lives against loaded dice.
CHAPTER XX—CONCERNING THE MAID AND THE BIRDS
We rode northwards, first through lands that I had travelled in before to Orleans, and so into a country then strange to me, passing by way of Lagny, with intent to go to Senlis, where we deemed the King lay. The whole region being near Paris, and close under the English power, was rich and peaceful of aspect, the corn being already reaped, and standing in sheaves about the fields, whether to feed Englishmen or Frenchmen, none could tell. For the land was in a kind of hush, in expectancy and fear, no man knowing how things should fall out at Paris. Natheless the Prior of Lagny, within that very week wherein we came, had gone to St. Denis, and yielded his good town into the hands of the Duc d’Alençon for the King. And the fair Duke had sent thither Messire Ambrose de Loré, a very good knight, with Messire Jehan Foucault, and many men-at-arms.
To Messire Ambrose we were brought, that we might give and take his news. I remember well that I dropped out of the saddle at the door of his lodgings, and could scarce stand on my legs, so weary was I with the long and swift riding. Never had I ridden so far, and so fast, fresh horses standing saddled and bridled for Thomas Scott and me at every stage, but the beast which I had hired I sent back from the first stage to mine host of the “Hanging Sword.” Not without labour I climbed the stairs to the chamber of Messire Ambrose, who bade us sit down, and called for wine to be given us, whereof Thomas Scott drank well, but I dared take none, lest my legs should wholly refuse their office.
When Thomas had told how all the country lay at the King’s peace, and how our purpose was to ride to the King at Senlis, the knight bade us rather make what haste we might to St. Denis. “For there, by to-morrow or next day, the King is like to be, and the assault will be delivered on Paris, come of it what will.”
With this he bade us good speed, but, to guess from his countenance, was in no high hopes. And, at supper, whereto we had the company of certain of his men-at-arms, I could well perceive that they were not in the best heart. For now we heard how the Maid, being sorrowful for the long delays, had bidden the Duc d’Alençon ride forth with her from Compiègne “to see Paris closer than yet she had seen it.” The Duc d’Alençon, who in late days has so strangely forgotten the loyalty of his youth, was then fain to march with her, for they two were the closest friends that might be. Therefore they had passed by way of Senlis, where they were joined by some force of men-at-arms, and so, on the third day’s march, they came to St. Denis, where they were now lying. Here it is that the kings of France have been buried for these eight hundred years, in the great Abbey.