tresses in a few days.

[Footnote 873: Jarry, _Le compte de l'armee anglaise_, pp. 75 _et
seq._]

With this army the King was sending the Maid who had been promised.

CHAPTER XI

THE MAID AT BLOIS--THE LETTER TO THE ENGLISH--THE DEPARTURE FOR
ORLEANS

With an escort of soldiers of fortune the Maid reached Blois at the
same time as my Lord Regnault de Chartres, Chancellor of France, and
the Sire de Gaucourt, Governor of Orleans.[874] She was in the domain
of the Prince, whom it was her great desire to deliver: the people of
Blois owed allegiance to Duke Charles, a prisoner in the hands of the
English. Merchants were bringing cows, rams, ewes, herds of swine,
grain, powder and arms into the town.[875] The Admiral, De Culant, and
the Lord Ambroise de Lore had come from Orleans to superintend the
preparations. The Queen of Sicily herself had gone to Blois.
Notwithstanding that at this time the King consulted her but seldom,
he now sent to her the Duke of Alencon, commissioned to concert with
her measures for the relief of the city of Orleans.[876] There came
also the Sire de Rais, of the house of Laval and of the line of the
Dukes of Brittany, a noble scarce twenty-four, generous and
magnificent, bringing in his train, with a goodly company from Maine
and Anjou, organs for his chapel, choristers, and little singing-boys
from the choir school.[877] The Marshal de Boussac, the Captains La
Hire and Poton came from Orleans.[878] An army of seven thousand men
assembled beneath the walls of the town.[879] All that was now waited
for was the money necessary to pay the cost of the victuals and the
hire of the soldiers. Captains and men-at-arms did not give their
services on credit. As for the merchants, if they risked the loss of
their victuals and their life, it was only for ready money.[880] No
cash, no cattle--and the wagons stayed where they were.

[Footnote 874: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 4.]

[Footnote 875: _Journal du siege_, _passim_. _Chronique de Tournai_,
ed. Smedt (vol. iii, in the _Recueil des chroniques de Flandre_), p.
409.]

[Footnote 876: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 93.]

[Footnote 877: Wavrin, in the _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 407. Monstrelet,
vol. iv, p. 316. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 278. Jean Chartier,
_Chronique_, p. 68. _Mistere du siege_, lines 11,431 _et seq._ Abbe
Bossard, _Gilles de Rais, Marechal de France, dit Barbe-Bleue_
(1404-1440), Paris, 1886, 8vo, pp. 31, 106.]

[Footnote 878: _Trial_, vo