Whilst Philip, with all speed, was on the road back to Paris with his army, as disheartened as its king, and more disorderly in retreat than it had been in battle, Edward was hastening, with ardor and intelligence, to reap the fruits of his victory. In the difficult war of conquest he had undertaken, what was clearly of most importance to him was to possess on the coast of France, as near as possible to England, a place which he might make, in his operations by land and sea, a point of arrival and departure, of occupancy, of provisioning, and of secure refuge. Calais exactly fulfilled these conditions. On arriving before the place, September 3rd, 1346, Edward “immediately had built all round it,” says Froissart, “houses and dwelling places of solid carpentry, and arranged in streets, as if he were to remain there for ten or twelve years, for his intention was not to leave it winter or summer, whatever time and whatever trouble he must spend and take. He called this new town _Villeneuve la Hardie_; and he had therein all things necessary for an army, and more too, as a place appointed for the holding of a market on Wednesday and Saturday; and therein were mercers’ shops and butchers’ shops, and stores for the sale of cloth and bread and all other necessaries. King Edward did not have the city of Calais assaulted by his men, well knowing that he would lose his pains, but said he would starve it out, however long a time it might cost him, if King Philip of France did not come to fight him again, and raise the siege.” Calais had for its governor John de Vienne, a valiant and faithful Burgundian knight, “the which seeing,” says Froissart, “that the king of England was making every sacrifice to keep up the siege, ordered that all sorts of small folk, who had no provisions, should quit the city without further notice.” The Calaisians endured for eleven months all the sufferings arising from isolation and famine. The King of France made two attempts to relieve them. On the 20th of May, 1347, he assembled his troops at Amiens; but they were not ready to march till about the middle of July, and as long before as the 23rd of June, a French fleet of ten galleys and thirty-five transports had been driven off by the English.