Now that the danger was drawing near, on the 6th of October, priests, burgesses, notables, merchants, mechanics, women and children walked in solemn procession with crosses and banners, singing psalms and invoking the heavenly guardians of the city.[508] [Footnote 508: Lottin, _Recherches_, vol. i, p. 205. P. Mantellier, _Histoire du siege_, p. 17.] On Tuesday, the 12th of this month, at the news that the enemy was coming through Sologne, the magistrates sent soldiers to pull down the houses of Le Portereau, the suburb on the left bank, also the Augustinian church and monastery of that suburb, as well as all other buildings in which the enemy might lodge or entrench himself. But the soldiers were taken by surprise. That very day the English occupied Olivet and appeared in Le Portereau.[509] With them were the victors of Verneuil, the flower of English knighthood: Thomas, Lord of Scales and of Nucelles, Governor of Pontorson, whom the King of England called cousin; William Neville; Baron Falconbridge; William Gethyn, a Welsh knight, Bailie of Evreux; Lord Richard Gray, nephew of the Earl of Salisbury; Gilbert Halsall, Richard Panyngel, Thomas Guerard, knights, and many others of great renown. [Footnote 509: _Journal du siege_, p. 4.] Over the two hundred lances from Normandy there floated the standards of William Pole, Earl of Suffolk, and of John Pole, two brothers descended from a comrade-in-arms of Duke William; of Thomas Rampston, knight banneret, the Regent's chamberlain; of Richard Walter, squire, Governor of Conches, Bailie and Captain of Evreux; of William Mollins, knight; of William Glasdale, whom the French called Glacidas, squire, Bailie of Alencon, a man of humble birth.[510] [Footnote 510: _Journal du siege_, pp. 2-4. Boucher de Molandon et de Beaucorps, _L'armee anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc_, p. 129.] The archers were all on horseback. There were practically no foot-soldiers. In carts drawn by oxen were barrels of powder, cross-bows, arrows, cannon-balls, and guns of all kinds, muskets, fowling-pieces, and large cannon. The two English master-gunners, Philibert de Moslant and William Appleby, accompanied the troops. There were also two masters of mining with thirty-eight workmen. Of women there were not a few, some of them acting as spies.[511] [Footnote 511: L. Jarry, _Le compte de l'armee anglaise_, pp. 26, 28, 29. Boucher de Molandon and de Beaucorps, _L'armee anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 50 _et seq._ Mademoiselle A. de Villaret, _Campagne des anglais_, ch. iv, pp. 39, 53; Accounts of the siege, nos. 30, 31, p. 214. Lottin, _Recherches_, vol. i, p. 205.]