ds and allies of course; but after
all they only came and went. The Armagnacs, on the contrary, were always
in the field, stealing whatever they could lay their hands upon, firing
farmsteads and churches, killing women and children, deflowering virgins
and nuns, hanging men by the thumbs. In 1420 they threw themselves like
devils let loose on the village of Champigny and burnt up altogether
oats, wheat, lambs, cows, oxen, children, and women. They did the like
and worse at Croissy. A very great clerk of the University declared they
wrought all wickedness that can be wrought and conceived, and that more
Christian folk had been martyred at their hands than ever Maximian or
Diocletian did to death.

At the news that these accursed Armagnacs were at the gates of Compiegne
and occupying the neighbouring castles and their lands, the folk of
Paris were sore afraid. They believed that the Dauphin's soldiers had
sworn, if they entered Paris, to slay whomsoever they found there. They
affirmed openly that Messire Charles de Valois had given up to his men's
mercy town and townsmen, great and small, of every rank and condition,
men and women, and that he proposed to drive the plough over the site of
the city. The inhabitants mostly believed the tale; so they set the St.
Andrew's cross on their coats, in token that they were of the party of
the Burgundians. Their hatred was doubled, and their fears with it, when
they learned that Brother Richard and the Maid Jeanne were at the head
of King Charles' army. They knew nothing of the Maid save from the
rumour of the victories she was reported to have won at Orleans. But
they deemed she had vanquished the English by the Devil's aid, by means
of spells and enchantments.

The Masters of the University all said: "A creature in shape of a woman
is with the Armagnacs. What it is, God knows!"

For Brother Richard, they knew him well. He had come to Paris before,
and they had hearkened reverently to his sermons. He had even persuaded
them to renounce those games of chance for which they had been used
to forget meat and drink and the services of the Church. Now, at the
tidings that Brother Richard was on foray with the Armagnacs and
winning over for them by his well-hung tongue good towns like Troyes in
Champagne, they called down on him the curse of God and his Saints. They
tore out of their hats the leaden medals inscribed with the holy name
of Jesus, which the good Brother had given them, and