, fol. 41. Loiseleur, _Comptes des
depenses de Charles VII pour secourir Orleans_, _loc. cit._]

Just at this time tidings were received of a convoy of victuals and
ammunition which Sir John Fastolf was bringing from Paris to the
English at Orleans. With two hundred men-at-arms the Bastard started
from Orleans to concert measures with the Count of Clermont. It was
decided to attack the convoy. Commanded by the Count of Clermont and
the Bastard the whole army from Blois marched towards Etampes with the
object of encountering Sir John Fastolf.[549]

[Footnote 549: _Journal du siege_, p. 37.]

On the 11th of February there sallied forth from Orleans fifteen
hundred fighting men commanded by Messire Guillaume d'Albret, Sir
William Stuart, brother of the Constable of Scotland, the Marshal de
Boussac, the Lord of Gravelle, the two Captains Saintrailles, Captain
La Hire, the Lord of Verduzan, and sundry other knights and squires.
They were summoned by the Bastard and ordered to join the Count of
Clermont's army on the road to Etampes, at the village of
Rouvray-Saint-Denis, near Angerville.[550]

[Footnote 550: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 231. _Chronique
de la Pucelle_, pp. 266, 267. _Journal du siege_, pp. 37, 38.]

The next day, Saturday, the eve of the first Sunday in Lent, when the
Count of Clermont's army was still some distance away, they reached
Rouvray. There, early in the morning, the Gascons of Poton and La Hire
perceived the head of the convoy advancing into the plain, along the
Etampes road.

There they were, a line of three hundred carts and wagons full of arms
and victuals conducted by English soldiers and merchants and peasants
from Normandy, Picardy, and Paris, fifteen hundred men at the most,
all tranquil and unsuspecting. There naturally occurred to the Gascons
the idea of falling upon these people and making short work with them
at the moment when they least expected it.[551] In great haste they
sent to the Count of Clermont for permission to attack. As handsome as
Absalom and Paris of Troy, full of words and eaten up of vanity, the
Count of Clermont, who was but a lad and none of the wisest, had that
very day received his spurs and was at his first engagement.[552] He
foolishly sent word to the Gascons not to attack before his arrival.
The Gascons obeyed greatly disappointed; they saw what was being lost
by waiting. And at length, perceiving that they have walked into the
lion's mouth, the E