To be crowned at Rheims would have been a decisive victory for Charles over his young competitor Henry VI. It would have made him a real king of France. But once again the politicians believed themselves the wiser, and the coronation was not to be thought of until the English were driven from the Loire.[b] Early in June, however, Joan was able to muster eight thousand combatants, of whom twelve hundred were knights, most of them townsmen of Orleans.[g] Suffolk, who had thrown himself into Jargeau, was besieged and the place stormed. Beaugency, too, was taken before Lord Talbot could receive the succours which Sir John Fastolf was bringing him from the regent. The constable De Richemont, who had long kept aloof within his own estates, came, in spite of the king and the Maid, to lend his aid to the victorious army. A battle was imminent; Richemont came to share the honour it might afford. Talbot and Fastolf had formed a junction of their forces; but it is a curious fact, illustrative both of the condition of the country and of the fortuitous character of the war, that no one knew where to find the English army in the wilderness of La Beauce, which was then covered with coppices and thickets, until they were discovered by a stag, which, being pursued by the French vanguard, rushed into the ranks of the English. The latter were on their march, and had not set up their defensive line of stakes as usual. Talbot alone was for fighting, furious as he was, since the defeat at Orleans, at having shown his back to the French. Fastolf, on the contrary, who had gained the battle of the Herrings, had no need of an engagement to retrieve his reputation, and said, like a sensible man, that with a disheartened army it was better to remain on the defensive. The French men-at-arms did not wait for the end of the discussion, but charged headlong, and met with no great resistance. Talbot fought with desperate obstinacy, hoping perhaps to be killed, and succeeded only in getting himself made prisoner. The pursuit was murderous; the bodies of two thousand English were strewed over the plain.