sperated because they believed
themselves betrayed. It was openly said that certain folk, and in
especial certain men of Religion, suborned by Messire Charles of Valois,
were watching for the best time to stir up trouble and bring in the
enemy in an hour of panic and confusion. Haunted by this fear, which
was not perhaps altogether baseless, the citizens who kept guard of the
ramparts showed scant mercy to any men of evil looks whom they found
loitering near the Gates and whom they might suspect, on the most
trivial evidence, of making signals to the Armagnacs. On Thursday,
September 8th, the good people of Paris awoke without any fear of being
attacked before the next day. This day, September 8th, was the Feast of
the Nativity of the Virgin, and it was an established custom with the
two factions that tore the Kingdom in twain to keep holy the feast-days
of Our Lord and His Blessed Mother.

Yet at this holy season the Parisians, on coming forth from Mass, learnt
that, notwithstanding the sacredness of the day, the Armagnacs had
appeared before the Porte Saint-Honore and had set fire to the outwork
which defended its approach. It was further reported that Messire
Charles of Valois was posted, for the time being, along with Brother
Richard and the Maid Jeanne, in the Hog Market without the Walls. The
same afternoon, through all the city, on either side the bridges, shouts
of fear arose--"Save yourselves! fly, the enemy are come in, all is
lost!" The cries were heard even inside the Churches, where pious folks
were singing Vespers. These came flying out in terror and ran to their
houses to take refuge behind barred doors.

Now the men who went about raising these cries were emissaries of
Messire Charles of Valois. In fact, at that very time, the Company of
the Marechal de Rais was making assault on the Walls near by the Porte
Saint-Honore. The Armagnacs had brought up in carts great bundles of
faggots and wattled hurdles to fill up the moats, and above six hundred
scaling-ladders for storming the ramparts. The Maid Jeanne, who was
nowise as the Burgundians believed, but lived a pious life and guarded
her chastity, set foot to ground, and was the first down into a dry
moat, which for that cause was easy to cross. But thereupon they found
themselves exposed to the arrows and cross-bolts that rained down thick
and fast from the Walls. Then they had in front of them a second moat.
Wherefore were the Maid and her men-at-arms s