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Updated: May 21, 2025
Now, as Joan's army mustered at Blois, south of Orleans, further down the river, she might march on the left side of the river, cross it by boats above Orleans, and enter the town where the English were weakest and had only one fort, St. Loup. Or she might march up the right bank, and attack the English where they were strongest, and had many bastilles.
Orleans, as all men know, lies upon the right the north bank of the Loire, and the country to the north was then altogether in the power of the English; wherefore they had built their great bastilles around the city upon that side without molestation, and were able to receive supplies from their countrymen without let or hindrance.
The English had built a fence of strong fortresses called bastilles around Orleans fortresses which closed all the gates of the city but one. To the French generals the idea of trying to fight their way past those fortresses and lead the army into Orleans was preposterous; they believed that the result would be the army's destruction.
Joan was tired with the day's excitement; she threw herself upon her bed to sleep, but unsuccessfully; all at once she said to Sire Daulon, her esquire, "My counsel doth tell me to go against the English; but I know not whether against their bastilles or against this Fascot. I must arm."
XXII. Then the Cid sent to the King of Zaragoza, bidding him yield up the Bastilles which he had built against Valencia; and the King returned for answer that he would not until King Yahia had paid him the whole cost which he had been at, when he came to his succour against King Abenalfange.
And presently he sent a force to besiege Valencia under Don Ramon Berenguer; and he had two Bastilles built, one in Liria, which King Yahia had given him when he came to relieve him, and the other in Juballa, and he thought to build another on the side of Albuhera, so that none might enter into the city, neither go out from it.
On the 4th of May, as soon as it was known that he was coming, Joan, La Hire, and the principal leaders of the city as well as of the garrison, went to meet him, and re-entered Orleans with him and his troops, passing between the bastilles of the English, who made not even an attempt to oppose them.
Yet a child might have seen that now or never was the chance: howbeit Talbot and Glasdale and Scales, men well learned in war, let fire not even a single cannon. It may be that they feared an attack of the Orleans folk on their bastilles, if they drew out their men.
These facts are now commented on with as much freedom as can be expected among a people whose imaginations are yet haunted by revolutionary tribunals and Bastilles, and the conclusions are not favourable to the Convention.
The siege was weakly conducted during the winter a series of skirmishes from the bastilles or towers thrown up by the besiegers led to little result on either side; and it was not till the month of February that a decisive engagement took place.
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