s to fight against--not the English, but the Armagnacs.
Paris showed a greater sympathy by instantly sending 300 archers and
300 of their own militia. At last the Duke of Burgundy gave to a
selfish policy what he had refused to patriotism, and realising that
when his own party was in power the English were more enemies than
allies, he sent 4000 men-at-arms to help the beleaguered city. In
January Guy le Bouteiller had brought 1500 more with him into the
castle. The town itself could provide 15,000 militia, 100
arbaletriers, 2000 artillerymen, and 2000 troops from the rest of
Normandy, who had fled to Rouen when their own towns were destroyed,
giving a total of 25,200 fighting men.

Taught by the bitter experience of Caen, the burghers began their
preparations by devastating the buildings in St. Sever on the south
side of the bridge, and before the invaders were close up, they
practically levelled to the ground nearly every house in the faubourgs
outside the fortifications. With the stone thus sacrificed, they
repaired the breaches in their walls, and strengthened every tower,
sowing "chausse-trappes," or sharp three-pronged irons in the fields
all round the city. Besides the cannon on the walls, each tower had
three large guns pointing in different directions, and eight smaller
pieces for fast firing. Antiquated weapons were pressed into the
service as well, the balista, the three-mouthed trebuchet (the
tappgete, or tryppgette of the English), and the sling for hurling
heavy darts and arrows set up on the Porte Martainville. Besides this,
they sank every boat on the Seine, above or below the town, and even
burnt their two royal galleys when the progress of the siege compelled
them to prevent the English from the advantage of their capture.
Further taxes were raised and cheerfully paid by layman, ecclesiastic,
and soldier alike, and orders were issued, by the sound of a trumpet
in every public square, that every householder should get in
provisions for ten months, an almost impossible feat considering the
scarcity of all food in Normandy at the time. Finally, some thousands
of the poorer classes were banished out of the town, and a few drifted
as far as Beauvais and Paris, but the majority were swept back again
into Rouen by the constantly increasing tide of fugitives driven into
the city by the English, to make the task of feeding so many useless
mouths more difficult. The results were hideous when the famine came.

O