For twenty-one days Captain Glasdale remained entrenched, with his five hundred Norman horse, under the battered walls of Les Tourelles, between his earthworks on Le Portereau side, which couldn't have become very formidable as yet, and his barrier on the bridge, which being but wood, a spark could easily have set on fire. Meanwhile the citizens were at work. After the departure of the English they performed a huge and arduous task. Concluding, and rightly, that the enemy would return not through La Sologne this time, but through La Beauce, they destroyed all their suburbs on the west, north, and east, as they had already destroyed or begun to destroy Le Portereau. They burned and pulled down twenty-two churches and monasteries, among others the church of Saint-Aignan and its monastery, so beautiful that it was a pity to see it spoiled, the church of Saint Euverte, the church of Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils, not without promising the blessed patrons of the town that when they should have delivered the city from the English, the citizens would build them new and more beautiful churches.[530] [Footnote 530: _Journal du siege_, p. 19. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 270. Jean Chartier, _Chronique_, vol. i, p. 61. Le P. Denifle, _La desolation des eglises de France_, petition C.] On the 30th of November Captain Glasdale beheld Sir John Talbot approaching Les Tourelles. He brought three hundred men furnished with cannon, mortars, and other engines of war. Thenceforward the bombardment was resumed more violently than before: roofs were broken through, walls were battered, but there was more noise than work. In La Rue Aux-Petits-Souliers a cannon-ball fell on to a table, round which five persons were dining, and no one was hurt. It was thought to have been a miracle of Our Lord worked at the intercession of Saint Aignan, the patron saint of the city.[531] The people of Orleans had wherewith to answer the besiegers. For the seventy cannon and mortars, of which the city artillery consisted, there were twelve professional gunners with servants to wait on them. A very clever founder named Guillaume Duisy had cast a mortar which from its position at the crook or spur by the Chesneau postern, hurled stone bullets of one hundred and twenty _livres_ on to Les Tourelles. Near this mortar were two cannon, one called Montargis because the town of Montargis had lent it, the other named _Rifflart_[532] after a very popular demon. A culverin firer, a Lorrainer living at Angers, had been sent by the King to Orleans, where he was paid twelve _livres_[533] a month. His name was Jean de Montesclere. He was held to be the best master of his trade. He had in his charge a huge culverin which inflicted great damage on the English.[534] [Footnote 531: _Journal du siege_, pp. 16, 17.]