And more than once the besieged had carried off, in the very faces of the English, victuals and ammunition destined for the besiegers and including casks of wine, game, horses, bows, forage, and even twenty-six head of large cattle.[844] [Footnote 843: _Le Jouvencel_, vol.i, p.

xxii; vol.ii, p.

44.] [Footnote 844: _Journal du siege_, pp.

56, 62.] The siege was costing the English dear,--forty thousand _livres tournois_ a month.[845] They were short of money; they were obliged to resort to the most irritating expedients.

By a decree of the 3rd of March King Henry had recently ordered all his officers in Normandy to lend him one quarter of their pay.[846] In their huts of wood and earth, the men-at-arms, who had endured much from the cold, now began to suffer hunger.
[Footnote 845: Jarry, _Le compte de l'armee anglaise_, pp.