Hundred Years’ War: Joan of Arc and the Siege of Orléans

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Joan asked that the gate toward Les Augustins — the English-held, fortified monastery on the south shore — be opened for a sortie, but the captain in charge of it refused, fearing an English attack through the open gate. La Pucelle demanded the doors be unlocked, and many soldiers and civilians agreed with her. The captain finally relented. Since the English had built a barrier spanning the bridge’s width, the Maid led a sortie across a shallow inlet of the Loire to the island of Aux Toiles southeast of the town’s walls. From there, using two boats as a floating bridge, the French landed on the south shore and attacked and seized the fort of St. Jean le Blanc, whose English defenders fled to the larger and stronger Les Augustins, near Les Tourelles. There, resistance was so formidable that the weary French withdrew. St. Jean le Blanc was subsequently abandoned by both sides.

Arriving by boat with La Hire and other mounted knights, Joan quickly saw that the English in Les Augustins were about to sortie against the retiring French. Lowering her lance, she led a charge that rallied the French, who now pressed hard upon the English as they attempted to re-enter Les Augustins by an open gate. Fighting their way into the fortress, the French pushed on until their banners replaced England’s on its walls, and the English fell back to Les Tourelles. All night, the civilians in Orléans brought food and supplies across the river.

The French captains told the Maid that they should not attack immediately, but inform the dauphin of their progress thus far and then await his decision. She scorned their advice, knowing that her soldiers were eager and the dauphin habitually indecisive. She ordered an early sortie, stating that her ‘counsel’ had warned her that she would be wounded that day above her breast.

From morning to night on May 6, the French assaulted Les Tourelles, held by the English commander Talbot. Soon after joining the attack, Joan was struck in the shoulder by an arrow, just as she had predicted, and wept as she was carried from the field while English archers jubilantly shouted, ‘The witch is dead!’ Angrily refusing magic amulets offered by men-at-arms, she had her wound — which turned out to be no more than a flesh wound, the arrow having barely penetrated her armor — treated with olive oil and lard. She confessed to her priest in a highly emotional state.

Since it was late in the day and the troops were exhausted, Dunois was about to call off the attack when Joan returned from Orléans on horseback. She had removed herself for some 10 minutes to pray, then returned, carrying her banner. The English, who had just sortied outside the walls of Les Tourelles, rushed back inside, shaken by the unexpected French resurgence.

Although he expected a French retreat amid the confusion and lack of prompt communications in the battle, a French knight, Jean d’Aulon, courageously resolved to advance against the next English sortie on May 7. Joan’s standard-bearer, exhausted, had handed her banner to a soldier known as le Basque. D’Aulon asked le Basque to join him. Together, they went into the moat and struggled to climb out of it to the timber walkway of the bridge. Joan demanded that le Basque give her back the banner — she gripped the end of the cloth, but le Basque, at d’Aulon’s insistence, refused to part with it. Instead, he raised it. The French men-at-arms, seeing the banner advancing to the edge of the bridge, rushed to it and stormed the bridge, Joan climbing the first scaling ladder raised. Four hundred to five hundred English attempted to flee Les Tourelles, but the bridge, meanwhile, had been set afire and it collapsed. Most of the English were killed or drowned. The French who had hoped to take their foes captive for ransom were shocked and dismayed. The Maid wept and shrieked at the English deaths.

On the following day, Talbot lifted the siege and the French re-entered Orléans by the bridge gate. That day, all the English south of the Loire were captured or killed. The next day, a Sunday, as the town celebrated a Te Deum of thanksgiving, the English forces north of the river demolished their camps and withdrew. Joan’s men were ready to attack the retreating column, but she forbade it, saying that on a Sunday they should fight only in self-defense. The column was harassed the next day, and cannons and other weapons were seized.

Tags: 15th-16th Century, Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures, Women's History

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