(_Bibliotheque Gauloise_).] _Le Mystere du siege_[25] must be classed with the chronicles.

It is in fact a rhymed chronicle in dialogue, and it would be extremely interesting for its antiquity alone were it possible to do what some have attempted and to assign to it the date 1435.

The editors, and following them several scholars, have believed it possible to identify this poem of 20,529 lines with a _certain mistaire_[26] played on the sixth anniversary of the delivery of the city.

They have drawn their conclusions from the following circumstances: the Marechal de Rais, who delighted to organise magnificent farces and mysteries, was in Duke Charles's city expending vast sums[27] there from September, 1434, till August, 1435; in 1439 the city purchased out of its municipal funds "a standard and a banner, which had belonged to Monseigneur de Reys and had been used by him to represent the manner of the storming of Les Tourelles and their capture from the English."[28] From such a statement it is impossible to prove that in 1435 or in 1439, on May 8, there was acted a play having the Siege for its subject and the Maid for its heroine.

If, however, we take "the manner of the storming of Les Tourelles" to mean a mystery rather than a pageant or some other form of entertainment, and if we consider the _certain mistaire_ of 1435 as indicating a representation of that siege which had been laid and raised by the English, we shall thus arrive at a mystery of the siege.