15, 18.] That which the people of Orleans had foreseen happened on the 30th of December.

On that day the English came in great force through La Beauce to Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils.[538] All the French knights went out to meet them and performed great feats of arms; but the English occupied Saint-Laurent, and then the siege really began.

They erected a bastion on the left bank of the Loire, west of Le Portereau, in a place called the Field of Saint-Prive.

Another they erected in the little island to the right of Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils.[539] On the right bank, at Saint-Laurent, they constructed an entrenched camp.

At a bow-shot's distance on the road to Blois, in a place called la Croix-Boissee, they built another bastion.