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Anno Domini 1429
Later that day a council was held to draw up plans for the next day's assault. The "Journal of the Siege..." includes a list of the commanders present at the meeting; the generous number of these fellows highlights the problem the French had in trying to run armies "by committee". The list included: Lord Dunois, Lord Graville, the Baron of Coulences, Chancellor Cousinot, Lord Gaucourt, Lord Villars, Lord Saint-Severe, Gilles de Rais, Poton de Saintrailles, La Hire, Lord Corraze, Jamet de Tilloy, Thibault d'Armagnac (de Termes), a Scot named Sir Hugh Kennedy (called "Canède" by the French), Ambroise de Loré, and Lord Denis de Chailly; and for good measure, some of the wealthy bourgeois of the city were also invited to add their expert input. One person who was not included among this collection was Joan herself, who was merely informed of the final decision. Jean Chartier notes that she was not pleased by this, and says that when they finally brought her in to announce their decision, she sensed that they had only told her a portion of the strategy which had been decided upon. The full plan was to launch two assaults: a feint against the fortress of St. Laurent designed to draw English troops away from the southern strongholds, followed by an assault against St. Jean-le-Blanc on the southern bank; the commanders are said to have been reluctant to tell her about the ruse, fearing that she would spill the beans (although it's never been clear why they were concerned about this: given the large gaggle of people who already knew, an eventual 'leak' of the information was almost assured). In any event, she was not fooled by the deception and immediately confronted them, pacing up and down the room and saying "Tell me what you have really decided", adding, "I would be able to keep secret a greater thing than this." ("Je celeroie plus grant chose que ceste-cy")3 If Dunois was surprised by this, he nevertheless did his diplomatic best to provide a smooth explanation, saying: "We cannot tell you everything at once. What the chancellor has told you has indeed been decided and appointed, but we have also decided that if those who are on the Sologne side of the river come to the assistance of those who are in the fortress, we shall cross the river to do whatever we can against them there."4 She was satisfied with this. The day of May 6th would see a resumption of the fighting, centered
on two strongholds. A fortified monastery called
'le bastille des Augustins'
controlled the southern approach to Les Tourelles, and was therefore
a crucial objective; this in turn was flanked by the
fortified church of St. Jean-le-Blanc to the east on the
bank of the Loire, near which the English had placed a large bombarde
nicknamed "Passe-volant" which had been lobbing eighty-pound stone
balls against the city's walls and buildings.5
To assault the latter fortress the troops were brought to an island
lying just offshore, from which access to the riverbank
was gained by means of a pontoon bridge constructed using two boats.
The attack commenced around 9 a.m. ("around the hour of Terce", according
to Louis de Coutes).6
As the French poured across the bridge, the English abandoned
St. Jean-le-Blanc in favor of the fortress of the Augustins.7
May 7th was to be the climax of the siege. Les Tourelles, the
most crucial fortress in English hands, was assaulted from
"the hour of dawn until the eighth hour in the evening".13
The towers themselves were situated atop the bridge, connected
to an earthen bulwark built on land just to the south; these were defended
by some 600 English soldiers,
some of whose names are recorded; the French had a larger but unknown
number assaulting the fortress. The "Journal of the Siege..." describes a chaotic scene as the
French began to storm the palisade from multiple points, "with such valour
and boldness that it seemed... they believed themselves immortal".14
Some notion of the desperate nature of the defense can perhaps be gauged by the
description of English troops sometimes using bare fists in addition
to axes, maces, and other such weapons to beat down the attackers
as they reached the top. Cannons
(presumably culverins) are mentioned, adding the sharp crack of
gunpowder explosions to the screams of the wounded. Somewhere
beneath the fortifications was a small personage holding her banner and encouraging
on the soldiers; Louis de Coutes says that she "always stayed with
the soldiers in the assault, exhorting them to have good heart,
and not fall back, for they would have the fortress soon."15
It was this proximity to the fighting which allowed her prediction to
come to pass: just as she was helping to raise a scaling ladder against the
redoubt,16 at some
point "after the morning meal",17
an English archer
found his mark. Dunois says that the arrow "penetrated her flesh
between the neck and shoulder, to a depth of half a foot",18
so that the arrow came out her back, according to Pasquerel.19
She was flung backwards by the impact; Pasquerel, who was
near her at the time (as she had asked him to be the previous night),
says that "when she felt herself wounded, she was afraid and wept..."20
The French troops seem to have become demoralized by her wound, and
the attack ran out of steam:
by the onset of dusk the commanders, discouraged by the lack
of success during an entire days' fighting, had
decided to call off the assault. Dunois says that she was dismayed
by this decision, and "came to me and asked that I wait a
little longer; and at that point she mounted her horse and withdrew
alone to a vineyard sufficiently far from the crowd of men; in which
vineyard she prayed for about half a quarter of an hour."25
After that, the sequence of events becomes muddled: as with modern after-action
reports from soldiers (or any other eyewitness accounts of
traumatic events), the memories of the various participants
are often contradictory and confusing. Dunois says that after
emerging from the vineyard she "immediately
took her banner in her hand and placed herself above the edge
of the trench, and as soon as she was there, the English trembled
and were terrified; the King's soldiers [i.e., the French],
however, recovered their courage and
began to ascend, dealing their assaults against the bulwark without
encountering any resistance."26
Jean d'Aulon gives a detailed
description of an episode involving a soldier referred to only as "le
Basque", who had been given custody of her banner by another soldier
(apparently someone else had been carrying it around after she was
wounded); d'Aulon said that he had asked the Basque to promise to
follow him into the trench in front of the earthwork, in the hope
that the soldiers would see her banner being carried forward and
take it as a signal to resume the assault;
but Joan spotted the Basque and ran after him, "believing that she
had lost [her banner]", exclaiming "Oh, my standard, my standard!"
A tug-of-war then ensued,
with Joan hanging on one end and the Basque trying
to pull it away from her. Jean d'Aulon says he shouted, "Oh Basque, is this what
you promised me?", after which the Basque succeeded in regaining
sole custody of the flag and ran forward with it. The other soldiers
then rallied and surged against the bulwark.27
The "Journal of the Siege..." and other chronicles give still another
view, saying that she had told
a nearby soldier to watch for her standard to blow against the wall;
when it did so, he cried, "Joan, it touches!", at which point she
said, "Then all is yours; enter!"28
This version somewhat echoes Louis de Coutes' statement
that at some point during the day she had told the soldiers that
"when they saw the wind moving her banner towards the fortress,
they would capture it."29
One of the most crucial days of the war was over. As the French troops returned to Orléans, church bells broke out in victory peals and the clergy and citizens sang "Te Deum Laudamus".37 The Burgundian chronicler Enguerrand de Monstrelet claims that the French "did not lose more than one hundred men of all ranks" in the assault on Les Tourelles, although his figure of "six to eight thousand" for English losses is obviously not credible.38 That night, in the first bit of peace and quiet that day, Joan had her wound dressed and ate "four or five pieces of bread" as her sole meal before going to sleep.39 The next day, Sunday May 8th, the English commanders decided to pull all forces out of their siege lines and abandon the effort. As they formed the troops in line of battle for one last challenge to the French, Joan put on a jasseren (a light suit of mail, since she was no longer able to take plate armor in her current condition) and rode out with the commanders to observe the situation.40 |   | |
According to the "Journal of the Siege" and some of the witnesses at the Rehabilitation, the rival armies watched each other for an hour that morning without either side making a move to renew hostilities, although the French, we are told, had to be restrained by a command from Joan, who did not wish to initiate battle on a Sunday;mn1 the English were also unwilling to spark a confrontation, and finally decided to begin filing off their companies for the march toward their stronghold at Meung-sur-Loire.41 Joan was quoted as saying, 'In God's name, they are going; let them leave, and let us go give thanks to God and not pursue them any further, for it's Sunday.";42 although the "Journal" says that some of the French disobeyed orders to launch a few attacks against the English rearguard as they withdrew, during the course of which a number of bombards, arbalests, and other weapons were captured.43 | ||
The retreat was greeted with another celebration within the
city: "the Maiden and the
other lords and men-at-arms reentered Orléans in great joy, to the
very great rejoicing of the clergy and people, who together
gave humble thanks to Our Lord...", adding that a procession was
held that day and the next,44
the first of many celebrations which
would be held on the anniversary of the event in every year since
then. Another source says that the procession covered all of the
places where fighting had occurred, with prayers being given at
each.45
The siege was over, and the English tide had begun to recede. The French Royal army, buoyed by its unlikely success and convinced of the Divine inspiration of its unusual commander, would shortly begin a series of campaigns designed to roll back the remaining English positions along the Loire. |   | |
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