ons of La Beauce and Gatinais, betook
themselves to the town to reinforce the army of Blois, the arrival of
which was announced. On the 28th, there entered my Lord Florent
d'Illiers,[870] Governor of Chateaudun, with four hundred fighting
men.[871]

[Footnote 870: Florent d'Illiers, descended from an old family of the
Chartres country, had married Jeanne, daughter of Jean de Coutes and
sister of the little page whom the Sire de Gaucourt had given the Maid
(A. de Villaret).]

[Footnote 871: _Journal du siege_, p. 73. _Chronique de la Pucelle_,
p. 278.]

What was to become of Orleans? The siege, badly conducted, was causing
the English the most grievous disappointments. Further, their captains
perceived they would never succeed in taking the town by means of
those bastions, between which anything, either men, victuals, or
ammunition, could pass, and with an army miserably quartered in mud
hovels, ravaged by disease, and reduced by desertions to three
thousand, or at the most to three thousand two hundred men. They had
lost nearly all their horses. Far from being able to continue the
attack it was hard for them to maintain the defensive and to hold out
in those miserable wooden towers, which, as Le Jouvencel said, were
more profitable to the besieged than to the besiegers.[872]

[Footnote 872: _Le Jouvencel_, vol. ii, p. 44.]

Their only hope, and that an uncertain and distant one, lay in the
reinforcements, which the Regent was gathering with great
difficulty.[873] Meanwhile, time seemed to drag in the besieged town.
The warriors who defended it were brave, but they had come to the end
of their resources and knew not what more to do. The citizens were
good at keeping guard, but they would not face fire. They did not
suspect the miserable condition to which the besiegers had been
reduced. Hardship, anxiety, and an infected atmosphere depressed their
spirits. Already they seemed to see _Les Coues_ taking the town by
storm, killing, pillaging, and ravaging. At every moment they believed
themselves betrayed. They were not calm and self-possessed enough to
recognise the enormous advantages of their situation. The town's means
of communication, whereby it could be indefinitely reinforced and
revictualled, were still open. Besides, a relieving army, well in
advance of that of the English, was on the point of arriving. It was
bringing a goodly drove of cattle, as well as men and ammunition
enough to capture the English for