rowd of people hasten to the spot; they see the hole
and a piece of the wall which had been restored, with two loop-holes;
they fail to understand, and think themselves sold and betrayed into
the enemy's hands; they rave and break forth into howls, and seek the
priest in charge of the hospital to tear him to pieces.[837] A few
days after, on Holy Thursday, a similar rumour is spread abroad:
traitors are about to deliver up the town into the hands of the
English. The folk seize their weapons; soldiers, burgesses, villeins
mount guard on the outworks, on the walls and in the streets. On the
morrow, the day after that on which the panic had originated, fear
still possesses them.[838]

[Footnote 835: "_Pourquoy la Hire, Poton et plusieurs autres vaillants
hommes qui moult enviz s'en alloient ainsi honteusement_," _Journal du
siege_, p. 42.]

[Footnote 836: The hospital of Orleans, close to the cathedral.]

[Footnote 837: 9 March. _Journal du siege_, pp. 56, 57.]

[Footnote 838: _Journal du siege_, p. 64.]

In the beginning of March the besiegers saw approaching the Norman
vassals, summoned by the Regent. But they were only six hundred and
twenty-nine lances all told, and they were only bound to serve for
twenty-six days. Under the leadership of Scales, Pole, and Talbot, the
English continued the investment works as best they could.[839] On the
10th of March, two and a half miles east of the city, they occupied
without opposition the steep slope of Saint-Loup and began to erect a
bastion there, which should command the upper river and the two roads
from Gien and Pithiviers, at the point where they meet near the
Burgundian gate.[840] On the 20th of March they completed the bastion
named London, on the road to Mans. Between the 9th and 15th of April
two new bastions were erected towards the west, Rouen nine hundred
feet east of London, Paris nine hundred feet from Rouen. About the
20th they fortified Saint-Jean-le-Blanc across the Loire and
established a watch to guard the crossing of the river.[841] This was
but little in comparison with what remained to be done, and they were
short of men; for they had less than three thousand round the town.
Wherefore they fell upon the peasants. Now that the season for tending
the vines was drawing near, the country folk went forth into the
fields thinking only of the land; but the English lay in wait for
them, and when they had taken them prisoners, set them to work.[842]

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