So accoutred, I departed next day, in good company, to Blois, whence the Maid was to set forth to Orleans.

Marvel it was to find the road so full of bestial--oxen, cows, sheep, and swine--all gathered, as if to some great market, for the victualling of Orleans.

But how they were to be got through the English lines into the city men knew not.

For the English, by this time, had girdled the city all about with great bastilles, each joined to other by sunken ways dug in the earth, wherein were streets, and marts, and chambers with fires and chimneys, as I have written in my Latin chronicle.

{24} There false Frenchmen came, as to a fair, selling and buying, with store of food, wine, arms, and things of price, buying and selling in safety, for the cannon and couleuvrines in the town could not touch them.