nd sixth were those
of the Burgundian Gate, also called the Gate of Saint-Aignan, because
it was close to the church of Saint-Aignan without the walls; the last
was the great corner tower, called La Tour Neuve, which thus comes to
have been twice counted.

The stone bridge lined with houses which led from the town to the left
bank of the Loire was famous all over the world. It had nineteen
arches of varying breadth. The first, on leaving the town by La Porte
du Pont, was called l'Allouee or Pont Jacquemin-Rousselet; here was a
drawbridge. The fifth arch abutted on an island which was long,
narrow, and in the form of a boat, like all river islands. Above the
bridge it was called Motte-Saint-Antoine, from a chapel built upon it
dedicated to that saint; and below, Motte-des-Poissonniers, because in
order to keep captured fish alive boats with holes in them were moored
to it. In 1447, to provide against the occupation of this island by
the enemy, the people of Orleans had constructed a tower, the tower or
fortress of Saint-Antoine, beyond the sixth arch and occupying the
whole breadth of the bridge. On the buttress between the eleventh and
twelfth arch was a cross of gilded bronze, supported by a pedestal of
stone. It was indeed what it was called, the Cross Beautiful,--La
Belle-Croix. The buttresses of the eighteenth arch were extended, and
on the abutment there rose a little castle formed of two towers joined
by a vaulted porch. This little castle was called Les Tourelles.
Between the nineteenth and the twentieth arch as in the first was a
drawbridge. Outside it was Le Portereau; and thence ran the road to
Toulouse, which beyond the Loiret on the heights of Olivet joined the
road to Blois.[482]

[Footnote 482: Jollois, _Lettre a Messieurs les membres de la Societe
des Antiquaires de France, sur l'emplacement du fort des Tourelles de
l'ancien pont d'Orleans_, Paris, 1834, in folio with illustrations.
Abbe Dubois, _Histoire du siege_, dissertation, v. Lottin,
_Recherches_, vol. i, pp. 15-18. Vergniaud Romagnesi, _Des differentes
enceintes de la ville d'Orleans_, pp. 17-19. A. Collin, _Le Pont des
Tourelles a Orleans_, Orleans, 1895, in 8vo. Morosini, vol. iii, p.
13, note 2.]

In those days the lazy waters of the Loire flowed midst osier-beds and
birchen thickets, since removed for purposes of navigation. Two and a
half miles east of Orleans, on the height of Checy, l'Ile aux Bourdons
was separated from the Sologne bank