Certain of the captains, and certain even of the people, treated them with derision. But by so doing they ran the risk of ill usage. The inhabitants of the city believed in the Maid as firmly as in Our Lord. From her they expected help and deliverance. They summoned her in a kind of mystic ecstasy and religious frenzy. The fever of the siege had become the fever of the Maid.[864] [Footnote 864: _Journal du siege_, p. 77.] Nevertheless, the use made of her by the King's men proved that, following the counsel of the theologians, they were determined to adopt only such methods as were prompted by human prudence. She was to enter the town with a convoy of victuals, then being prepared at Blois by order of the King assisted by the Queen of Sicily.[865] In all the loyal provinces a new effort was being made for the relief and deliverance of the brave city. Gien, Bourges, Blois, Chateaudun, Tours sent men and victuals; Angers, Poitiers, La Rochelle, Albi, Moulins, Montpellier, Clermont sulphur, saltpetre, steel, and arms.[866] And if the citizens of Toulouse gave nothing it was because their city, as the notables consulted by the _capitouls_[867] ingenuously declared, had nothing to give--_non habebat de quibus_.[868] [Footnote 865: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 93. _Geste des nobles_, in _La chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 250. The Accounts of fortresses (1428-1430), in Boucher de Molandon, _Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 30 _et seq._] [Footnote 866: _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 287. _Journal du siege_, p. 81. Boucher de Molandon, _Premiere expedition de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 28, 29. P. Mantellier, _Histoire du siege_, p. 230.] [Footnote 867: The name by which the town councillors of Toulouse were called.] [Footnote 868: _Le siege d'Orleans, Jeanne d'Arc et les capitouls de Toulouse_, by A. Thomas, in _Annales du Midi_, 1889, p. 232. It would appear that Saint-Flour, although solicited, did not contribute: it had enough to do to defend itself from the freebooters who were constantly hovering round. Cf. _Villandrando et les ecorcheurs a Saint-Flour_ by M. Boudet, Clermont-Ferrand, 1895, in 8vo, pp. 18 _et seq._] The King's councillors, notably my Lord Regnault de Chartres, Chancellor of the Realm, were forming a new army. What they had failed to accomplish, by means of the men of Auvergne, they would now attempt with troops from Anjou and Le Mans. The Queen of Sicily, Duchess of Touraine and Anjou, willingly lent her aid. Were Orleans taken she would be in danger of losing lands by which she set great store. Therefore she spared neither men, money, nor victuals. After the middle of April, a citizen of Angers, one Jean Langlois, brought letters informing the magistrates of the imminent arrival of the corn she had contributed. The town gave Jean Langlois a present, and the magistrates entertained him at dinner at the Ecu Saint-Georges. This corn was a part of that large convoy which the Maid was to accompany.[869]