Illumination from Martial d’Auvergne epic poem: Les Vigiles de la mort de Charles VII
Joan of Arc besieged Paris with the avant-garde of the French army. The main army never engaged in the battle while illustrious Burgundian captains held the gates until the skittish people of Paris came to reinforce the walls and to man the cannons. Joan refused to leave and the Duke of Alençon came himself to take her out of the ditch she was hiding in, hiding away from arrows. She’d been hit in the leg.
Adoncques Jehanne la pucelle
Se mist dedans l’arriere fosse
Ou fist de besongner merveille
D’un couraige en ardeur dresse
Ung vireton que l’en tira
La vint en la jambe assener
Et si point n’en desempara
Ne ne s’en voult oncques tourner
[…]
Les seigneurs et gens de façon
Lui manderent s’en revenir
Et y fut le duc d’Alençon
Pour la contraindre à s’en venir.
