eign Pontiff and
the other heads of the Church, who, after having prayed, fasted and
consulted the witnesses and traditions of the Church, decreed that
henceforth that day, the 8th of September, should be universally
consecrated to the celebration of the birth of the Virgin Mary.[1762]

[Footnote 1762: Voragine, _Legenda Aurea_. Anquetil, _La nativite,
miracle extrait de la legende doree_, in _Mem. Soc. Agr. de Bayeux_,
1883, vol. x, p. 286. Douhet, _Dictionnaire des mysteres_, 1854, p.
545.]

That day were read at mass the words of the prophet Isaiah: "And there
shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall
grow out of his roots."

The people of Paris thought that even the Armagnacs would do no work
on so high a festival and would keep the third commandment.

On this Thursday, the 8th of September, about eight o'clock in the
morning, the Maid, the Dukes of Alencon and of Bourbon, the Marshals
of Boussac and of Rais, the Count of Vendome, the Lords of Laval, of
Albret and of Gaucourt, who with their men, to the number of ten
thousand and more, had encamped in the village of La Chapelle,
half-way along the road from Saint-Denys to Paris, set out on the
march. At the hour of high mass, between eleven and twelve o'clock,
they reached the height of Les Moulins, at the foot of which the Swine
Market was held.[1763] Here there was a gibbet. Fifty-six years
earlier, a woman of saintly life according to the people, but
according to the holy inquisitors, a heretic and _a Turlupine_, had
been burned alive on that very market-place.[1764]

[Footnote 1763: Perceval de Cagny, pp. 166, 168. _Chronique de la
Pucelle_, pp. 333, 334. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, pp. 107,
109. Falconbridge, in _Trial_, vol. iv, pp. 456, 458. _Journal d'un
bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 244, 245. _Chronique des cordeliers_, fol.
486 verso. P. Cochon, ed. Beaurepaire, p. 307. Morosini, vol. iii, p.
210.]

[Footnote 1764: Gaguin, _Hist. Francorum_, Frankfort, 1577, book viii,
chap. ii, p. 158. Tanon, _Histoire des tribunaux de l'inquisition en
France_, p. 121. Lea, History of the Inquisition in the Middle Age,
vol. ii, p. 126. (The Turlupins were a German sect who called
themselves "the Brethren of the Free Spirit." W.S.)]

Wherefore did the King's men appear first before the northern walls,
those of Charles V, which were the strongest? It is impossible to
tell. A few days earlier they had thrown a bridge across the River
ab