The sagacity of the enemy had been well exhibited in the vigor with which they had pressed the siege of Rouen. Conde, with barely seven thousand men, had several weeks before shut himself up in Orleans, after despatching the few troops at his disposal for the relief of Bourges and Rouen, and could do nothing beyond making his own position secure, while impatiently awaiting the long-expected reinforcements from England and Germany.[184] The dilatoriness that marked the entire conduct of the war up to this time had borne its natural fruit in the gradual diminution and dispersion of his forces, in the loss of one important city after another, and almost of entire provinces, and, worst of all, in the discouragement pervading all classes of the Huguenot population.[185] Now, however, he was on the eve of obtaining relief. Two days after the fall of Rouen, on the twenty-eighth of October, a second detachment of the English fleet succeeded in overcoming the contrary winds that had detained them ten days in crossing the channel, and landed three thousand troops at the port of Havre.[186] D'Andelot had finally been able to gather up his German "reiters" and "lansquenets,"[187] and was making a brilliant march through Alsace, Lorraine, Burgundy, and Champagne, skilfully avoiding the enemy's forces sent out to watch and intercept him.[188] On the sixth of November, he presented himself before the gates of Orleans, and was received with lively enthusiasm by the prince and his small army.[189] Now at length, on the seventh of November, Conde could leave the walls which for seven months had sheltered him in almost complete inaction, and within which a frightful pestilence had been making havoc among the flower of the chivalry of France; for, whilst fire and sword were everywhere laying waste the country, heaven had sent a subtle and still more destructive foe to decimate the wretched inhabitants. Orleans had not escaped the scourge. The city was crowded with refugees from Paris and from the whole valley of the Loire. Among these strangers, as well as among the citizens, death found many victims. In a few months it was believed that ten thousand persons perished in Orleans alone; while in Paris, where the disease raged more than an entire year, the number of deaths was much larger.[190] [Sidenote: Conde takes the field.] With the four thousand lansquenets and the three thousand reiters brought him from Germany,[191] Conde was able to leave a force, under command of D'Andelot, sufficient to defend the city of Orleans, and himself to take the field with an army of about fifteen thousand men.[192] "Our enemies," he said, "have inflicted two great losses upon us in taking our castles"--meaning Bourges and Rouen--"but I hope that now we shall have their knights, if they move out upon the board."[193]