pine, the burnings and constant molestations inflicted by the
King's men. But now they were eager to renounce it; for they realised
that alone with only the town bands and those from the neighbouring
villages, mere peasants, they could not sustain the siege; to resist
the enemy they must have horsemen, skilled in wielding the lance, and
foot, skilled in the use of the cross-bow. While their Governor the
Sire de Gaucourt and my Lord, the Bastard of Orleans, the King's
Lieutenant General, went to Chinon and Poitiers to obtain supplies of
men and money[496] from the King, the citizens in commissions of two
and two went forth asking help of the towns, travelling as far as
Bourbonnais and Languedoc.[497] The magistrates appealed to those
soldiers of fortune who held the neighbouring country for the King of
France. By the mouths of the two heralds of the city, Orleans and
Coeur-de-Lis, they proclaimed that within the city walls were gold
and silver in abundance and such good provision of victuals and arms
as would nourish and accoutre two thousand combatants for two years,
and that every gentle, honest knight who would might share in the
defence of the city and wage battle to the death.[498]

[Footnote 496: Accounts of Hemon Raguier, Bibl. Nat. Fr. 7858, fol.
41. Loiseleur, _Comptes des depenses_, p. 65. Pallet, _Nouvelle
histoire du Berry_, vol. iii, pp. 78-80. Vallet de Viriville, in
_Bulletin de la Societe d'histoire de France. Cabinet historique_,
vol. v, part ii, p. 107. P. Mantellier, _Histoire du siege_, p. 15.]

[Footnote 497: A. Thomas, _Le siege d'Orleans, Jeanne d'Arc et les
capitouls de Toulouse_, in _Annales du Midi_, April, 1889, p. 232. M.
Boudet, _Villandrando et les ecorcheurs a Saint-Flour_, pp. 18, 19. A.
de Villaret, _Campagne des Anglais_, p. 61.]

[Footnote 498: The monk of Dunfermline in the _Trial_, vol. v, p.
341.]

The inhabitants of Orleans feared God. In those days God was greatly
to be feared; he was almost as terrible as in the days of the
Philistines. The poor fisher folk were afraid of being repulsed if
they addressed him in their affliction; they thought it better to take
a roundabout road and to seek the intercession of Our Lady and the
saints. God respected his Mother and sought to please her on every
occasion. Likewise he deferred to the wishes of the Blessed, seated on
his right hand and on his left in Paradise, and he inclined his ear to
listen to the petitions they presented to him.