iscretion caused it to be said that he was in favour
with all the ladies, even with the Queen.[525] In everything he was
apt, in war as well as in diplomacy, marvellously adroit, and a
consummate dissembler.

[Footnote 522: Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. i,
p. 25; vol. ii, p. 389.]

[Footnote 523: Monstrelet, vol. iv, pp. 273, 274. _Chronique de la
Pucelle_, pp. 243, 247. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 54.
_Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 221. _Cronique Martiniane_, p.
7.]

[Footnote 524: Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. ii, p. 105.]

[Footnote 525: Mathieu d'Escouchy, _Chronique_, ed. Beaucourt, Paris,
1863, vol. i, p. 186. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol.
ii, p. 236.]

My Lord the Bastard brought in his train several knights, captains,
and squires of renown, that is to say, of high birth or of great
valour: the Marshal de Boussac, Messire Jacques de Chabannes,
Seneschal of Bourbonnais, the Lord of Chaumont, Messire Theaulde of
Valpergue, a Lombard knight, Captain La Hire, wondrous in war and in
pillage, who had lately done so well in the relief of Montargis, and
Jean, Sire de Bueil, one of those youths who had come to the King on
a lame horse and who had taken lessons from two wise women, Suffering
and Poverty. These knights came with a company of eight hundred men,
archers, arbalesters, and Italian foot, bearing broad shields like
those of St. George in the churches of Venice and Florence. They
represented all the nobles and free-lances who for the moment could be
gathered together.[526]

[Footnote 526: _Journal du siege_, pp. 10, 12. _Cronique Martiniane_,
p. 8. _Le jouvencel_, p. 277. Loiseleur, _Comptes des depenses_, pp.
90, 91.]

After the death of its chief, Salisbury's army was paralysed by
disunion and diminished by desertions. Winter was coming: the
captains, seeing there was nothing to be done for the present, broke
up their camp, and, with such men as remained to them, went off to
shelter behind the walls of Meung and Jargeau.[527] On the evening of
the 8th of November all that remained before the city was the garrison
of Les Tourelles, consisting of five hundred Norman horse, commanded
by William Molyns and William Glasdale. The French might besiege and
take them: they would not budge. The Governor, the old Sire de
Gaucourt, had just fallen on the pavement in La Rue des Hotelleries
and broken his arm; he couldn't move.[528] But what about the rest