them, it counterbalanced that passion by another of the same kind, which in the end became prevalent, and brought him back, by degrees, to his natural connections with his family and his native country. About the same time, the duke of Brittany began to withdraw himself from the English alliance. His brother, the count of Richemont, though connected by marriage with the dukes of Burgundy and Bedford, was extremely attached by inclination to the French interest; and he willingly hearkened to all the advances which Charles made him for obtaining his friendship. The staff of constable, vacant by the earl of Buchan's death, was offered him; and as his martial and ambitious temper aspired to the command of armies, which he had in vain attempted to obtain from the duke of Bedford, ho not only accepted that office, but brought over his brother to an alliance with the French monarch. The new constable, having made this one change in his measures, firmly adhered ever after to his engagements with France. Though his pride and violence, which would admit of no rival in his master's confidence, and even prompted him to assassinate the other favorites, had so much disgusted Charles, that he once banished him the court, and refused to admit him to his presence, he still acted with vigor for the service of that monarch, and obtained at last, by his perseverance, the pardon of all past offences. [1426.] In this situation, the duke of Bedford, on his return, found the affairs of France, after passing eight months in England. The duke of Burgundy was much disgusted. The duke of Brittany had entered into engagements with Charles, and had done homage to that prince for his duchy. The French had been allowed to recover from the astonishment into which their frequent disasters had thrown them. An incident too had happened, which served extremely to raise their courage. The earl of Warwick had besieged Montargis with a small army of three thousand men, and the place was reduced to extremity, when the bastard of Orleans undertook to throw relief into it. This general, who was natural son to the prince assassinated by the duke of Burgundy, and who was afterwards created count of Dunois, conducted a body of one thousand six hundred men to Montargis; and made an attack on the enemy's trenches with so much valor, prudence, and good fortune, that he not only penetrated into the place, but gave a severe blow to the English, and 典 obliged Warwick to raise the siege. This was the first signal action that raised the fame of Dunois, and opened him the road to those great honors which he afterwards attained. But the regent, soon after his arrival, revived the reputation of the English arms by an important enterprise which he happily achieved. He secretly brought together, in separate detachments, a considerable army to the frontiers of Brittany; and fell so unexpectedly upon that province, that the duke, unable to make resistance, yielded to all the terms required of him he renounced the French alliance; he engaged to maintain the treaty of Troye; he acknowledged the duke of Bedford for regent of France; and promised to do homage for his duchy to King Henry.† And the English prince, having thus freed himself from a dangerous enemy who lay behind him, resolved on an undertaking, which, if successful, would, he hoped, cast the balance between the two nations, and prepare the way for the final conquest of France. [1428.] The city of Orleans was so situated between the provinces commanded by Henry, and those possessed by Charles, that it opened an easy entrance to either; and as the duke of Bedford intended to make a great effort for penetrating into the south of France, it behoved him to begin with this place, which, in the present circumstances, was become the most important in the kingdom. He committed the conduct of the enterprise to the earl of Salisbury, who had newly brought him a reënforcement of six thousand men from Eng. land, and who had much distinguished himself by his abilities during the course of the present war. Salisbury, passing the Loire, made himself master of several small places, which surrounded Orleans on that side; ‡ and as his intentions were thereby known, the French king used every expedient to supply the city with a garrison and provisions, and enable it to maintain a long and obstinate siege. The lord of Gaucour, a brave and experienced captain, was appointed governor : many officers of distinction threw themselves into the place: the troops which they conducted were inured to war, and were determined to make the most obstinate resistance: and even the inhabitants, disciplined by the long continuance of hostilities, were well qualified, in their own defence, to second * Monstrelet, vol. ii. p. 32, 33. VOL. II. 33 Holingshed, p. 597. Polyd. Virg. p. 468. H the efforts of the most veteran forces. The eyes of all Europe were turned towards this scene; where, it was reasonably supposed, the French were to make their last stand for maintaining the independence of their monarchy, and the rights of their sovereign. The earl of Salisbury at last approached the place with an army, which consisted only of ten thousand men; and not being able, with so small a force, to invest so great a city, that commanded a bridge over the Loire, he stationed himself on the southern side towards Sologne, leaving the other, towards the Beausse, still open to the enemy. He there attacked the fortifications which guarded the entrance to the bridge; and, after an obstinate resistance, he carried several of them; but was himself killed by a cannon ball as he was taking a view of the enemy. The earl of Suffolk succeeded to the command; and being reënforced with great numbers of English and Burgundians, he passed the river with the main body of his army, and invested Orleans on the other side. As it was now the depth of winter, Suffolk, who found it difficult, in that season, to throw up intrenchments all around, contented himself, for the present, with erecting redoubts at different distances, where his men were lodged in safety, and were ready to intercept the supplies which the enemy might attempt to throw into the place. Though he had several pieces of artillery in his camp, (and this is among the first sieges in Europe where cannon were found to be of importance,) the art of engineering was hitherto so imperfect, that Suffolk trusted more to famine than to force for subduing the city; and he purposed in the spring to render the circumvallation more complete, by drawing intrenchments from one redoubt to another. Numberless feats of valor were performed both by the besiegers and besieged during the winter: bold sallies were made, and repulsed with equal boldness: convoys were sometimes introduced, and often intercepted: the supplies were still unequal to the consumption of the place: and the English seemed daily, though slowly, to be advancing towards the completion of their enterprise. [1429.] But while Suffolk lay in this situation, the French parties ravaged all the country around; and the besiegers, who were obliged to draw their provisions from a distance, * Hall, fol. 105. Monstrelet, vol. ii. p. 39. Stowe, p. 369. Holingshed, p. 599. Grafton, p. 531. were themselves exposed to the danger of want and famine. Sir John Fastolffe was bringing up a large convoy of every kind of stores, which he escorted with a detachment of two thousand five hundred men; when he was attacked by a body of four thousand French, under the command of the counts of Clermont and Dunois. Fastolffe drew up his troops behind the wagons; but the French generals, afraid of attacking him in that posture, planted a battery of cannon against him, which threw every thing into confusion, and would have insured them the victory, had not the impatience of some Scottish troops, who broke the line of battle, brought on an engage ment, in which Fastolffe was victorious. The count of Dunois was wounded; and about five hundred French were left on the field of battle. This action, which was of great importance in the present conjuncture, was commonly called the battle of Herrings; because the convoy brought a great quantity of that kind of provisions, for the use of the English army during the Lent season. * Charles seemed now to have but one expedient for saving this city, which had been so long invested. The duke of Orleans, who was still prisoner in England, prevailed on the protector and the council to consent that all his demesnes should be allowed to preserve a neutrality during the war, and should be sequestered, for greater security, into the hands of the duke of Burgundy. This prince, who was much less cordial in the English interests than formerly, went to Paris, and made the proposal to the duke of Bedford; but the regent coldly replied, that he was not of a humor to beat the bushes while others ran away with the game; an answer which so disgusted the duke, that he recalled all the troops of Burgundy that acted in the siege.† This place, however, was every day more and more closely invested by the English great scarcity began already to be felt by the garrison and inhabitants: Charles, in despair of collecting an army which should dare to approach the enemy's intrenchments,. not only gave the city for lost, but began to entertain a very dismal prospect with regard to the general state of his affairs. He saw that the country in which he had hitherto with great difficulty subsisted, would be laid entirely open to the invasion *Hall, fol. 106. Holingshed, p. 600. † Hall, fol. 106. ton, p. 533 Monstrelet, vol. ii. p. 41, 42. Stowe, p. 369. of a powerful and victorious enemy; and he already enter tained thoughts of retiring with the remains of his forces into Languedoc and Dauphiny, and defending himself as long as possible in those remote provinces. But it was fortunate for this good prince that, as he lay under the dominion of the fair, the women whom he consulted had the spirit to support his sinking resolution in this desperate extremity. Mary of Anjou, his queen, a princess of great merit and prudence, vehemently opposed this measure, which, she foresaw, would discourage all his partisans, and serve as a general signal for deserting a prince who seemed himself to despair of success. His mistress too, the fair Agnes Sorel, who lived in entire amity with the queen, seconded all her remonstrances, and threatened that, if he thus pusillanimously threw away the sceptre of France, she would seek in the court of England a fortune more correspondent to her wishes. Love was able to rouse in the breast of Charles that courage which ambition had failed to excite: he resolved to dispute every inch of ground with an imperious enemy, and rather to perish with honor in the midst of his friends, than yield ingloriously to his bad fortune; when relief was unexpectedly brought him by another female of a very different character, who gave rise to one of the most singular revolutions that is to be met with in history. In the village of Domremi, near Vaucouleurs, on the bor ders of Lorraine, there lived a country girl of twenty-seven years of age, called Joan d'Arc, who was servant in a small inn, and who in that station had been accustomed to tend the horses of the guests, to ride them without a saddle to the watering-place, and to perform other offices which, in well frequented inns, commonly fall to the share of the men servants.* This girl was of an irreproachable life, and had not hitherto been remarked for any singularity; whether that she had met with no occasion to excite her genius, or that the unskilful eyes of those who conversed with her had not been able to discern her uncommon merit. It is easy to imagine, that the present situation of France was an interesting object even to persons of the lowest rank, and would become the frequent subject of conversation: a young prince, expelled his throne by the sedition of native subjects, and by the arms of strangers, could not fail to move the compassion of all his * Hall, fol. 107. Monstrclet, vol. ii. p. 42. Grafton, p. 534. |