[675] Ib. “Mense Junio cum insigni multitudine militum venit.” Vet. An. 307. “Sequenti æstate magno vicinorum atque amicorum exercitu congregato.”
[676] Of the two bridges side by side, the elder is useless, two arches having been broken down by the Vendeans in 1793. But there has been fighting not far off in still later times.
[677] Ord. Vit. 774 C. “Venit ad Planchias Godefredi, vadum Egueniæ fluminis pertransivit, regiosque pugiles qui urbem custodiebant ad conflictum lacessiit.” Vet An. 307. “Non longe a civitate improvisus advenit; cui milites regis simul cum populo usque ad Pontem Leugæ hostiliter occurrentes quum ejus impetum sustinere non possent in fugam conversi sunt. Ille vero amne transmisso, eos viriliter insecutus,” &c. These two accounts seem to place the fighting on different sides of the river. I incline to Orderic’s version on this ground. A version which carries men across by a ford is always to be preferred to one which carries them across by a bridge, as likely to preserve the older tradition. The bridge may always have been built between the time of the event and the time of the writer, and he may easily be led to speak as if it had been there at the earlier time. Orderic himself speaks of the bridge in 775 B.
[678] Ord. Vit. 774 C. “Audaces Normanni foras proruperunt, diuque dimicaverunt, sed numerosa hostium virtute prævalente in urbem repulsi sunt. Tunc etiam hostes cum eisdem ingressi sunt, quia eorum violentia coerciti municipes portas claudere nequiverunt; sed per urbem fugientes vix in arcem aliasque munitiones introire potuerunt.” Vet. An. 307. “Ille [Helias] cum suo exercitu civitatem nullo prohibente audacter ingressus, eos qui in munitionibus erant repentina obsidione conclusit.”
[679] Ord. Vit. 774 C. “Cives Heliam multum diligebant, ideoque dominatum ejus magis quam Normannorum affectabant…. Porro Helias a gaudentibus urbanis civitate susceptus est.” Wace (14884) strongly brings out the general zeal for Helias, though he has his own explanation for it;
“Cil del Mans od li se teneient,
D’avancier li s’entremetteient,
E li homes de la loée
Esteient tuit à sa criée.
E li baron de la cuntrée