The Great Sieges of History

by William Robson

SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 1429.

We come now to an interesting siege, one connected with many stirring associations for both French and English readers. The miserable condition into which France had fallen at the period of the unjust invasion of our Henry V., can scarcely be conceived. An insane king, ambitious grasping princes, bold, poor, and selfish nobles, all conspired to oppress a sunken and degraded people. With us, Henry V. has a false amiability thrown round his character; except in his bravery and shrewd sense, the historical Henry V. has not much resemblance to the heroic, gay, dissipated but good-natured, Hal of Shakespeare. He and his English rendered themselves hateful to the French, whom they treated as a conquered nation. The early death of Henry made matters still worse. His brother Bedford, with Talbot, Salisbury, and other eminent leaders, upheld the English cause in France for many years, and with occasional success; but the one great directing will and power was gone; where there are many, however able they may be, disunions will take place, and even a good cause will fail. For Englishmen who are proud of the valour and ability of their heroes of all ages, the page now before us is a melancholy one to turn over. Better knights never laid lance in rest; wiser and more prudent men never met in council, than some of the leaders in these ill-starred wars; and yet all seem to be striving against fate, and that fate was that their cause was unjust.

At the period of this siege, the two great actors in the late events, Henry V. of England and Charles VI. of France, were dead. Henry’s son was an infant; Charles’s was still worse: the infant was under the good tutelage of his brave and good uncles, whilst Charles’s son, for a long time called only the dauphin, was a weak, dissipated, indolent youth, a willing prey to mistresses and favourites. By the treaty of Troyes, signed by Henry V. and Charles VI., the crown belonged to Henry VI.; but the bulk of the French nation deemed such a compulsory engagement binding upon no one, and all eagerly waited the opportunity for throwing off the odious foreign yoke.

For a long time the council of the king of England, to assist in ruining the party of Charles VII., disinherited, as they said, by the treaty of Troyes, had fixed their eyes upon Orleans; but numberless considerations had retarded the siege of that city. At length, on the 8th of October, 1428, ten thousand English approached to reconnoitre the environs of the place, after having rapidly conquered Château-Neuf, Rambouillet, Bétancourt, Rochefort, and all the neighbouring places. Gaucourt, the governor of the city, made a vigorous sortie, and repulsed the enemy. They went and sacked some more places, and on the 12th of the same month reappeared before Orleans, on the side of the Sologne. The garrison was weak, but it had as leaders intrepid warriors, the Gaucourts, the Dunois, the Lahires, the Xaintrailles, a crowd of noblesse of that name and that merit, who all inspired the lowest soldiers with the heroic valour which animated them. The inhabitants even, resolved to bury themselves under the ruins of their city rather than submit to a foreign yoke, had become so many heroes. The women partook of this martial ardour, and devoted themselves enthusiastically to the service of their country.

The tête du pont, on the side of the Sologne, was defended by a fortress called Les Tourelles, in front of which a bulwark had been commenced. It was by this intrenchment the earl of Salisbury, the general of the English army, made his first attacks. The faubourgs, set fire to on the approach of the enemy, were not yet entirely consumed. This barrier stopped them at first, but they soon elevated a bastille upon the ruins of the convent of the Augustines, and erected batteries, which kept up a constant discharge against the walls of the city, the Tourelles, and the boulevard, of which they wished to make themselves masters. The cannon made a large breach, and it was resolved to mount it sword in hand. On the 21st of October, the trumpets sounded the signal, and, as if by one motion, the warriors planted their ladders at the foot of the ramparts. They sprang up with incredible intrepidity; but they were received with a firmness equal to it, and both sides fought with the same fury. National hatred and a desire for vengeance added to the natural desire to conquer. Whilst the besieged hurled their foes into the fosses, launched fire-pots, rolled stones of an enormous size upon them, encircled them with rings of red-hot iron, poured torrents of boiling oil, and burning ashes, the women of the city, not less active, in the words of a chronicler, “brought them everything that could assist in the defence; and to refresh their great labour, bread, wine, meats, fruits, and vinegar, with white towels to wipe them. Some were seen, during the assault, repulsing the English with lance-thrusts from the entrance to the boulevard, and beating them down into the fosses.” Such a furious resistance disconcerted Salisbury; he sounded a retreat, and ordered a mine to be instantly commenced. It was soon finished, and they were preparing to spring it. The besieged perceived it, and despairing of maintaining a post threatened on all sides, they set fire to it, in the sight of the English, and retired into the fortress of the Tourelles. To defend this for a short time, they raised a new boulevard on the bridge even, of which they destroyed two arches. Notwithstanding all this, they could not long withstand the multiplied efforts of the English. The fort of the Tourelles was carried, and that advantageous post offered the besiegers a commodious and redoubtable position. The Orléannais then directed all their batteries against that part of their city for which they had so boldly fought. The enemy, on their side, neglected no means to maintain it, and both exhausted, in attack or defence, all the resources the most heroic valour could furnish.

It was then the middle of autumn. Salisbury foreseeing that the siege would be long, resolved to encircle the place with a belt of many forts, which, placed at regular distances, would render the entrance of succours or convoys next to impossible. To draw up his plan according to the situation of the city, he repaired to the Tourelles, from whence a view could be obtained of the whole environs of Orleans. He was earnestly employed on this examination, when a cannon-ball carried away one of his eyes and half of his face. After having exhorted the principal officers to continue the siege according to the plan he had traced for them, he was transported to Meun, where he soon after died. The earl of Suffolk, the lord Pole his brother, Talbot, Glansdale, and other leaders, were clothed with his authority; and these captains, full of respect for their general, continued their operations according to the instructions he had given them.

Every day the besiegers and the besieged received reinforcements. The garrison, which at first scarcely amounted to twelve hundred men, was now composed of three thousand combatants; and the English army, which at the commencement only reckoned ten thousand warriors, was increased to twenty-three thousand soldiers, who thought themselves invincible. The city, which had been attacked on the side of the Sologne alone, was now invested almost entirely on that of the Beauce. Opposite to the principal avenues of Orleans were erected six large bastilles, which communicated with each other by sixty less considerable redoubts, constructed in the intervals. It was impossible to enter the place without passing under the artillery of the forts. More than once the French leaders forced the quarters of the enemy’s army to introduce convoys. The rigour of the season did not at all interrupt the works. Only on Christmas-day the English proposed a suspension of arms, and begged the besieged to send them some musicians, to celebrate that great festival with proper solemnity. The generals made each other presents. The earl of Suffolk sent the bastard of Orleans some refreshments in exchange for a plush robe which he had given him. Up to the beginning of Lent, nothing remarkable took place. Having desolated the country round, the English began to be in want of provisions. In the early part of February, the duke of Bedford sent a convoy, escorted by two thousand five hundred men, under the conduct of the brave Fastolfe. The count de Clermont having collected nearly three thousand soldiers, to whom he added a detachment of the garrison of Orleans, resolved to carry off this convoy. He came up with the English at Rouvray, a village of the Beauce. Fastolfe[9] halted, made an intrenchment of the waggons which contained the provisions, and only left two issues, at one of which he placed his archers. The French army, more courageous than prudent, wished that same night to force this intrenchment, with an impetuosity that has often proved fatal to their countrymen. The French insisted upon fighting on horseback; the Scots would only fight on foot. This deficiency of discipline produced the effect that might have been expected. After an obstinate conflict, the English were conquerors. A hundred and twenty nobles of high rank were left dead upon the field; and the other leaders returned to the city, quite crest-fallen, with scarcely five hundred followers. This battle was called “La journée des harengs,” because the convoy conducted by Fastolfe consisted principally of barrels filled with this fish, which, being broken by the French artillery, their savoury contents were strewed over the field of battle.

In proportion with the triumph of the English in this little battle was the depression of the feeble and voluptuous Charles, then lying encamped at Chinon. Despairing of his fortunes, the timid monarch deliberated whether he had not better seek refuge in Dauphiny. It was his own opinion, and his servile counsellors concurred in it. He was already about to carry this resolution into effect, when two heroines roused the courage of the prince from its effeminate slumbers. The queen, a princess above her sex and her rank, and the fair Agnes[10] Sorel, employed the influence their charms had over him to detain the king, who could but blush to think he had less magnanimity than his wife or his mistress.

In the mean time Orleans seemed daily sinking into the last extremity. The besieged could no longer look for relief to a prince who was in no condition to assist them, and who, indeed, scarcely preserved a shadow of royalty. There only remained one chance of saving the city, and that was to place it in sequestration in the hands of the duke of Burgundy. The envoys, among whom was Xaintrailles, went at once to the duke, who agreed to the proposal, and came with them to Paris, with the design of persuading the duke of Bedford to accept it. But the regent replied that he would only treat with the city upon the condition of its surrender to the English. This intelligence roused the indignation and revived the courage of the Orléannais; they resolved to defend themselves to the last breath.

Whilst terrified France looked for nothing but the blow which was to consummate its ruin, that Invincible Power which sometimes seems to attach the greatest events to the most apparently weak causes, prepared her an avenger. A girl, of about seventeen years of age, was strongly persuaded that God destined her to be the preserver of her country. Our readers will please to observe we speak of La Pucelle according to the opinion entertained of her by the French of her own day, because it was that opinion which produced the revolution which astonishes us: if the majority of the French nation had not had faith in the mission of Joan of Arc, the miracle would not have been effected. Born near the banks of the Meuse, at Dom-Remy, a village of Lorraine, her poor but honest parents had given her an education conformable to the simplicity of her situation. Jeanne d’Arc, or, as we call her, Joan of Arc, had from her childhood been brought up with a horror for the English; she constantly made it the subject of her prayers that the monarchy should be delivered from the eternal enemies who tyrannized over it. Her zeal becoming more ardent with her years, at thirteen she had trances, in which she declared she had conversed with St. Michael, St. Marguerite, and St. Catherine, who told her that God had appointed her to drive out the English and bring about the coronation of the dauphin. With this enthusiasm she possessed all the virtues of which a simple mind is susceptible: innocence, piety, candour, generosity, and courage. Her rustic life had strengthened her naturally robust frame; she had the exterior, and even the natural graces of her sex, without experiencing the infirmities which characterize the weakness of it.