Talbot arrived with 300 reinforcements and heavier cannons. He based his army west of the city. The French also received reinforcements led by John Dunois, comte de Longueville (the ‘Bastard of Orléans,’ son of the imprisoned duke) and the Gascon mercenary Etienne de Vignoles, better known as La Hire.

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On Christmas Day 1428, a truce was honored from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. The English requested that the French musicians in Orléans play for them, and they did. Supplies in the town were dwindling — on January 3, 1429, a covey of 154 pigs and 400 sheep entered Orléans through the eastern gate, evidence of the laxity of English patrols. The French sortied against the English camp at St. Laurent on an isle near the town on January 15, but the alerted foe threw them back into the river’s shallow waters.

On February 12, a crucial fight occurred. The English, with 1,500 men, including French allies from Picardy and Normandy, and a convoy of 300 carts loaded with barrels of salted herring for Lent, were attacked by a sortie in strength from Orléans. Having been warned, the English circled their carts into a defensive laager. The French and their Scottish mercenaries, surprised by that maneuver, could not agree upon their next move. Their orders were to fight on horseback and not dismount, thus ensuring a quick withdrawal to Orléans. Sir John Stewart, the Constable of Scotland, disobeying that command, ordering 400 men to attack the wagon ring on foot. The French stayed on their mounts at a distance, uncooperative, at which point the English, led by Sir John Fastolf, charged out of their defensive circle and sent the Scots reeling in retreat until 60 to 80 mounted men from the French main body, led by the Count of Clermont, charged the scattered English. In the process of aiding the Scots, Clermont was unhorsed, hit in the foot by an arrow and narrowly escaped being killed or captured before two of his archers placed him on another mount. Sir John Stewart was killed.

The Battle of the Herrings, as it came to be called, was the last sortie the French would make until Joan’s arrival. Even as the siege tightened, however, a break for the French emerged on the political front. The town council of Orléans had appealed to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, to aid his fellow Frenchmen diplomatically. In response, Philip asked Bedford to remove the English forces before Orléans and leave it a neutralized city under Burgundian control, adding that he would be ‘very angered to have beaten the bushes that others take the bird.’ Bedford refused. The Burgundian troops in his command thereupon left the siege.

The first formal news of the Maid’s arrival among the English was a letter from her to their commander, asking them to leave Orléans and France. In it she was titled the French chef de guerre. This was undoubtedly a clerk’s entry. Joan was illiterate and not the French chief of staff, although she did have a ‘battle,’ as it was called in the era — a battalion of several hundred men. The English ignored the letter, but they were alerted to the approach of the new French force.

The only free access to Orléans was by its eastern Burgundy Gate. The English camp of St. Loup was on the western side of the town. The English held the towers on the south shore of the Loire, and the French the gates of Orléans at its other end. The wooden bridge itself was a no man’s land in easy range of missiles from either side.

The French were wary of reinforcing the town. A major effort required a fleet of riverboats and rafts poled or sailing against the strong current of the river in spring flood. The winds were weak and against the river armada, but Joan, as always, remained positive and eager to proceed. Abruptly, the winds became stronger and changed direction, speeding the boats upstream past English archers and cannoneers, few of whom fired a shot. The contrary wind shortened the range, weakened the impact and handicapped the accuracy of arrows. The cannons of the era were inaccurate against a moving target.

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