At first they only encamped, and the people of Calais must have seen the
whole plain covered with the white canvas tents, marshalled round
the ensigns of the leaders, and here and there a more gorgeous one
displaying the colours of the owner. Still there was no attack upon the
walls. The warriors were to be seen walking about in the leathern suits
they wore under their armor; or if a party was to be seen with their
coats of mail on, helmet on head, and lance in hand, it was not against
Calais that they came; they rode out into the country, and by and by
might be seen driving back before them herds of cattle and flocks
of sheep or pigs that they had seized and taken away from the poor
peasants; and at night the sky would show red lights where farms and
homesteads had been set on fire. After a time, in front of the tents,
the English were to be seen hard at work with beams and boards, setting
up huts for themselves, and thatching them over with straw or broom.
These wooden houses were all ranged in regular streets, and there was
a marketplace in the midst, whither every Saturday came farmers and
butchers to sell corn and meat, and hay for the horses; and the English
merchants and Flemish weavers would come by sea and by land to bring
cloth, bread, weapons, and everything that could be needed to be sold in
this warlike market.
The Governor, Sir Jean de Vienne, began to perceive that the King did
not mean to waste his men by making vain attacks on the strong walls of
Calais, but to shut up the entrance by land, and watch the coast by sea
so as to prevent any provisions from being taken in, and so to starve
him into surrendering. Sir Jean de Vienne, however, hoped that before he
should be entirely reduced by famine, the King of France would be able
to get together another army and come to his relief, and at any rate he
was determined to do his duty, and hold out for his master to the last.
But as food was already beginning to grow scarce, he was obliged to turn
out such persons as could not fight and had no stores of their own, and
so one Wednesday morning he caused all the poor to be brought together,
men, women, and children, and sent them all out of the town, to the
number of 1,700. It was probably the truest mercy, for he had no food to
give them, and they could only have starved miserably within the town,
or have hindered him from saving it for his sovereign; but to them it
was dreadful to be driven out of house and home, straight down upon
the enemy, and they went along weeping and wailing, till the English
soldiers met them and asked why they had come out. They answered
that they had been put out because they had nothing to eat, and their
sorrowful, famished looks gained pity for them. King Edward sent orders
that not only should they go safely through his camp, but that they
should all rest, and have the first hearty dinner that they had eaten
for many a day, and he sent every one a small sum of money before they
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