That which the people of Orleans had foreseen happened on the 30th of December. On that day the English came in great force through La Beauce to Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils.[538] All the French knights went out to meet them and performed great feats of arms; but the English occupied Saint-Laurent, and then the siege really began. They erected a bastion on the left bank of the Loire, west of Le Portereau, in a place called the Field of Saint-Prive. Another they erected in the little island to the right of Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils.[539] On the right bank, at Saint-Laurent, they constructed an entrenched camp. At a bow-shot's distance on the road to Blois, in a place called la Croix-Boissee, they built another bastion. Two bow-shots away, towards the north on the road to Mans, at a spot called Les Douze-Pierres, they raised a fort which they called London.[540] [Footnote 538: To the number of 2500. _Journal du siege_, p. 20. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 265. Abbe Dubois, _Histoire du siege_, p. 252. Jollois, _Histoire du siege_, pp. 26, 27.] [Footnote 539: Cf. _ante_, p. 112, note 1. On the plan this island is called Petite Ile Charlemagne.] [Footnote 540: G. Girault's report in the _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 283. Morosini, vol. iii, p. 16, note 5; vol. iv, supplement xiii.] By these works half of Orleans was invested, which was as good as saying that it was not invested at all. People went in and out as they pleased. Small relieving companies despatched by the King arrived without let or hindrance. On the 5th of January, 1429, Admiral de Culant with five hundred men-at-arms crosses the Loire opposite Saint-Loup and enters the city by the Burgundian Gate. On the 8th of February there enters William Stuart, brother of the Constable of Scotland, at the head of a thousand combatants well accoutred, and accompanied by several knights and squires. On the morrow they are followed by three hundred and twenty soldiers. Victuals and ammunition are constantly arriving; on the 3rd of January, nine hundred and fifty-four pigs and four hundred sheep; on the 10th, powder and victuals; on the 12th, six hundred pigs; on the 24th, six hundred head of fat cattle and two hundred pigs; on the 31st, eight horses loaded with oil and fat.[541] [Footnote 541: _Journal du siege_, pp. 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 34.]