in my Latin
chronicle. {24} There false Frenchmen came, as to a fair, selling and
buying, with store of food, wine, arms, and things of price, buying and
selling in safety, for the cannon and couleuvrines in the town could not
touch them. But a word ran through the host how the Maid knew, by
inspiration of the saints, that no man should sally forth from among the
English, but that we should all pass unharmed.

Meantime the town of Blois was in great turmoil--the cattle lowing in the
streets, the churches full to the doors of men-at-arms, waiting their
turn to be shrived, for the Maid had ordained that all who followed her
must go clean of sin. And there was great wailing of light o' loves, and
leaguer lasses that had followed the army, as is custom, for this custom
the Maid did away, and drove these women forth, and whither they wandered
I know not. Moreover, she made proclamation that all dice, and tabliers,
and instruments of gambling must be burned, and myself saw the great pile
yet smoking in the public place, for this was to be a holy war. So we
lodged at Blois, where the Maid showed me the best countenance, speaking
favourable words of Elliot and me, and bidding me keep near her banner in
battle, which I needed no telling to make me resolve to do. So there,
for that night, we rested.

CHAPTER XII--HOW THE MAID CAME TO ORLEANS, AND OF THE DOLOROUS STROKE
THAT FIRST SHE STRUCK IN WAR

Concerning the ways of the saints, and their holy counsel, it is not for
sinful men to debate, but verify their ways are not as our ways, as shall
presently be shown, in the matter of the Maid's march to Orleans.

For the town of Blois, where now we lay, is, as all men know, on the
right bank of the water of Loire, a great river, wider and deeper and
stronger by far than our Tay or Tweed, and the town of Orleans, whither
we were bound, is also on the same side, namely, the right side of the
river. Now, Orleans was beleaguered in this manner: The great stone
bridge had been guarded, on the left, or further side of the stream,
first by a boulevard, or strong keep on the land, whence by a drawbridge
men crossed to a yet stronger keep, called "Les Tourelles," builded on
the last arches of the bridge. But early in the siege the English had
taken from them of Orleans the boulevard and Les Tourelles, and an arch
of the bridge had been broken, so that in nowise might men-at-arms of the
party of France enter into Orleans by wa